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How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing

December 14, 2020 //  by  Lindsay Ann //   1 Comment

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Do you wonder how to give constructive feedback on creative writing and poetry pieces created by student writers who have put their heart and soul into them? 

I think all teachers struggle with this question to some extent. It is because we care. 

This can lead to indecisive response to student work. We waste valuable time when we lack a plan for response and worry about the emotional reaction to our feedback.

In this post, I’m all about sharing practical strategies that will teach you how to best give constructive feedback. 

I want you to feel as comfortable responding to creative writing assignments as analysis based writing or argumentative writing assignments so that you can help student writers grow without deflating their fragile egos.

Setting the Stage for Writing Feedback

I think that it’s important to remember the feeling associated with having someone else read our work.

When I was a student, it was always a mixture of anticipation and dread . Would my instructor like what I had written? Would my grade reflect the time and effort I had put into the assignment? 

A couple of things before we discuss how to give constructive feedback…

👉 I think that it’s important to be clear with students upfront about the skills you’re looking for in a creative writing assignment. Frontload with exemplars and use creative writing exercises to practice skills. Then, when it comes time for students to write, they will know what they are expected to do as writers. 

👉 At the same time, it’s important to focus on feedback during the writing process . This allows our response to be as readers rather than as evaluators. 

👉 Finally, I think that it makes a BIG difference when you model your own creative process for students. The more I can show students that writing is messy and imperfect, that I go through the same process as them, the more my classroom dynamic shifts from teacher-centered to student-centered and collaborative. If you’re wondering how to give constructive feedback to students, ask them to give feedback to you first.

Constructive Feedback for Students

When it comes to student feedback, less is more. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ll say it again (and again) (and…again).

Most students don’t care about our carefully-worded paragraphs. They want to be seen and heard , but they also want to be able to understand what they can do to improve. 

This means that feedback should be direct, specific, and actionable .  This means that we need to respond as readers , not evaluators.  This means that we will leave a manageable amount of feedback to build a student’s momentum.

Strategies for How to Give Constructive Feedback

➡️ Only mark the lines you love the most. Highlight them, underline them, put a star in the margin. Choose a couple of these lines to comment on. What did you notice? What did you like/realize/want to know?

➡️ Focus on the skills taught in class. So, if you taught characterization and concrete details, give feedback specifically on those elements. Ask students to revisit resources/screencasts/examples, etc. to review these skills.

➡️ Focus on moments of clarity and confusion. Where did you, as a reader, make a connection or realize something important? Where were you confused? 

➡️ Yin Yang Feedback

• Find something specific that you liked/enjoyed (and explain why/how ). Maybe it’s a bit of figurative language or a vivid image. Pair this with a suggestion for where the writer can continue to work on this same skill. Essentially, this is like saying, “See, here, you did this thing that I liked and enjoyed…can you do more of that over here?” Or, “As a reader, it seemed to me like your intent was x, y, or z when you wrote _________. I’m wondering if you can make this clearer when _________.
• What is the highest level of skill mastery you can observe? Find an example of success and talk about why/how it was successful. What is the most important skill that still needs to be developed? Find a place where the student can begin working on this skill.
• Where were you most engaged/interested in the story. Leave a quick note about what captured your attention. Where were you least engaged/interested? This type of teacher feedback encourages revision.

➡️ Be curious. Read through the draft and ask questions… only questions . This is a kind of constructive feedback students love to hate (because it makes them think ). I ask my students to respond and revise. This strategy rocks because it establishes feedback as a two-way conversation rather than a one-way lecture. 

➡️ Have students direct your feedback by asking you questions about their work. Alternatively, you can ask students to reflect on how/where they have demonstrated the skills you’ve taught in class (or the goals they’ve set for themselves). Then, you simply read through and respond to their comments, sharing your thoughts and suggestions.

➡️ Use a writer’s workshop model in which you conference with students about their work. You can train students to lead in these conversations if you choose the 1:1 model. Alternatively, you can form writing circles in which you provide students examples of constructive feedback before asking students to take turns reading their work out loud and solicit feedback from group members. You can float between writing groups, joining the conversations as needed.

Final Thoughts

I hope that I’ve helped you learn more about how to give constructive feedback to creative writers. 

As we become purposeful in our responses to students, the benefit is that we streamline our own systems and processes which allows us to feel better about the feedback we are giving and also the amount of time it takes to provide this feedback!

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

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How to Give and Receive Feedback on Creative Writing

When you’ve finished a novel or short story, it’s helpful to get feedback from people you trust. You may also have a critique partner, or be part of a writing group that offers reciprocal feedback. Here’s how to make feedback useful.

When someone asks for your feedback on a piece of writing, whether it is a short story or a novel, remember that the writer requesting feedback has spent a lot of time laboring over their words, and respect the fact that they are choosing you for your opinion.

When you seek feedback for a piece of writing, it’s important that the feedback you receive is helpful. Telling your beta reader what sort of feedback you expect can ensure that the feedback is pertinent. Here’s how to give and receive feedback on your novel or short story.

The importance of feedback

While part of the writing journey is discovering the story that is within the writer, it’s only when stories resonate with readers that a piece of writing is successful. While you may not intentionally write to please others, the goal of telling a story is to engage the people who read it. The best way to know if your story or novel works is to find out what readers think.

There are many ways to find beta readers, people who read your work to give feedback before you send it out to an agent, editor, or publication. You may ask friends, family members, fellow authors, or you may  seek out beta readers in other ways .

As a writer, you may be asked to give feedback on the work of other writers, especially if you are in a writing group where people exchange feedback, or you work with a critique partner. When different people read your manuscript, they may see things that you don’t notice, because you’ve been seeing them for so long. It’s always useful to get opinions on your writing, even if you may not agree with the feedback.

How to request feedback

When you request feedback for a novel or story, you shouldn’t just send it to someone without giving some guidelines. Here are some elements you might wish the feedback to address:

• Is the work enjoyable, and did the reader feel the urge to keep reading? Did they want to turn the pages and get to the end?
• Are the characters believable, and are the main characters’ motivations clear?
• Do the settings feel real?
• Is anything over-described?
• Does the dialog feel authentic?
• Is the plot believable and does the resolution make sense?
• Are sentences, paragraphs, or chapters too long or too short? Does the prose flow, or does it feel choppy?

Also, ask your reader to mention any specific points that stand out that you haven’t covered.

It’s best to ask your reader not to say anything about typos unless they interfere with the story. You will have to do several editing passes of your manuscript, and you should be able to find these yourself.  You may even want to use an online grammar checker , chapter by chapter, to spot this sort of mistake. It’s not a good idea for your beta reader to get bogged down in minor details. What’s more important is hearing what they think about the story, the characters, the flow, the pacing, and all the elements that make a story or novel flow.

Remember to not take any feedback personally. Your reader may praise some things and criticize others, and their criticism is about the work, not about you as a writer. Feedback is a valuable tool for learning more about your writing, so use it wisely.

How to give useful feedback

When someone asks you to give feedback on their work, they may not have enough experience to know what to ask for. The most useful type of feedback is that described above, but the type of feedback they need may depend on whether you’re reading a work by a new writer or someone who has published already.

The first thing to do when giving feedback is to start by saying what you like about the manuscript. Highlight what works well in the piece, whether it’s plot, character, dialogue, description, or anything else. Remember that you’re giving feedback to a person who may be sensitive about the months or years they spent writing, and it’s important to reassure them that their work is valid. Think about how you would like to receive feedback and apply that to the feedback you give to others.

Make sure your feedback is balanced; for every critical point, include a positive point. Don’t shy away from criticizing elements that stand out, but do this in a constructive way. Offer suggestions for points that seem weak, but don’t rewrite entire paragraphs to show how you would have written something.

It’s important that you understand the writer’s intent, and that you are aware of how their work fits in a specific genre. For example, a friend may ask you to read a novel that is not a genre that you generally read. In this case, you may not be able to give appropriate feedback on genre-specific conventions.

When giving feedback, it’s useful to ask questions if you don’t understand something, such as a character’s motivation or a plot point. This may be more useful than criticism, as the writer, in thinking about the question, may discover something they need to improve on their own.

Giving and receiving feedback for creative writing can be sensitive, because writers are often personally attached to their work. Doing this with care and sensitivity can help writers improve their work and move ahead toward publication.

Kirk McElhearn is a  writer ,  podcaster , and  photographer . He is the author of  Take Control of Scrivener , and host of the podcast  Write Now with Scrivener .

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• Published: 31 August 2024

Profiling EFL writing teachers’ feedback provision practices and activity uses in Saudi universities

• Muhammad M. M. Abdel Latif   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4002-822X 1 ,
• Asma Alsahil   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8326-3388 2 &
• Zainab Alsuhaibani   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2154-9460 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  1120 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

• Language and linguistics

Understanding the realities of feedback practices and activity uses in writing classrooms is key to optimizing them. This study attempted to profile Saudi university English writing teachers’ uses of feedback delivery modes, error correction strategies, and learner-centered feedback activities. The study drew upon the qualitative approach by using an open-ended questions to explore and gain an in-depth understanding of teachers’ feedback provision practices and activity uses. Open-end questionnaire responses were collected from 74 English writing teachers working at eight Saudi universities. The results revealed that handwritten and oral feedback modes are more dominant in the teachers’ practices than electronic and audio-recorded modes. Additionally, a relatively larger number of the teachers reported using direct and comprehensive error correction strategies more than indirect and selective ones. A considerable number of the teachers were found to use combinations of feedback modes, direct-indirect and comprehensive-selective error correction forms. With regard to their use of learner-centered feedback activities, a larger number of the teachers reported making use of peer feedback in their classes but neglecting student self-evaluation and automated writing evaluation activities. The paper discusses the implications pertinent to improving feedback provision practices and activity uses in the Saudi university context.

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Introduction.

The writing teacher’s main task is to provide students with feedback on their texts (Ferris et al., 2011 ). While providing feedback on students’ writing is time-consuming, it is a prominent and non-negotiable component in writing instruction (Ferris and Hedgcock, 2013 ). Feedback provision is a much more complicated task in second-language (L2) writing environments when compared to first-language (L1) ones. Due to the more writing difficulties encountered in such L2 learning environments, teachers try to meet a wider range of students’ needs and expectations and help them overcome different types of writing problems. Feedback provision is theoretically grounded in Vygotsky’s ( 1978 ) socio-cultural theory. According to this theory, learners gain more benefits when teachers encourage them to self-correct and scaffold their language products by adjusting their choice of corrective strategies (Lantolf, 2000 ). Teachers’ feedback beliefs and practices are important contextual factors in L2 writing learning and development.

Feedback in writing classes entails using different modes, strategies, and activities. In writing classes, we can distinguish between ‘teacher feedback provision practices’ and ‘teacher uses of feedback activities’. In writing instruction literature, these two terms are alternatively labeled as ‘teacher feedback forms’ and ‘non-teacher feedback forms’ (see for example, Abdel Latif et al., 2024 ; Saito, 1994 ). The former term ‘teacher feedback provision practices’ refers to the feedback modes and types/forms the teacher uses when evaluating students’ texts. As for ‘teacher uses of feedback activities’, this term means the learner-centered feedback activities the teacher makes use of in the writing classroom; these normally include writing self-evaluation, peer feedback, and automated writing evaluation activities. The main role of the writing teacher in such activities is not to provide students with feedback but to guide and organize their participation in them, to monitor and evaluate their responses to the activities, and to assess their writing outcomes. The ultimate goal of both ‘teacher feedback provision practices’ and ‘teacher uses of feedback activities’—or teacher and non-teacher feedback forms– is to raise students’ awareness of their writing strengths and weaknesses and in turn bring about desired changes in their performance.

Feedback provision and activity use represent an indicator of writing instruction effectiveness and students’ successful learning (Wang et al., 2023 ). In their attempts to meet L2 students’ writing needs, teachers have to optimize feedback provision practices and activities in their classes taking some contextual factors into account, such as time constraints, students’ levels, and class size. Besides, L2 writing difficulties can negatively influence the successful implementation of classroom learner-centered feedback activities (e.g., Özkanal and Gezen, 2023 ; Tian and Zhou, 2020 ). Accordingly, understanding writing teacher feedback provision practices and their uses of feedback activities is key to improving both forms of feedback in writing classes.

The last three decades have witnessed the publication of an increasing number of studies on feedback in L2 writing environments. Some studies have been concerned with teacher feedback (e.g., Mao and Crosthwaite, 2019 ; Wei and Cao, 2020 ; Zacharias, 2007 ). Other studies have focused mainly on learner-centered feedback activities (e.g., Dikli and Bleyle, 2014 ; Özkanal and Gezen, 2023 ; Sari and Han, 2024 ; Zhao, 2010 ). While these empirical attempts have widened our understanding of feedback practices in L2 writing classes, some research issues remain unaddressed. For example, it can be noted that previous studies have been concerned with some international settings rather than others. Besides, previous studies on learner-centered feedback activities have only evaluated them in light of students’ perceptions and experiences and neglected those of teachers. In an attempt to deal with these two research gaps, the study reported in this paper has tried to profile Saudi university English writing teachers’ feedback provision practices and their perspectives on learner-centered feedback activities. Before presenting the study, in the following section, we review and discuss pertinent research on L2 writing teacher feedback, learner-centered writing feedback, and English writing feedback practices in the Saudi context, respectively.

Literature review

L2 writing teacher feedback research.

Using various research approaches, previous relevant works have focused on exploring L2 writing teachers’ feedback provision strategies and beliefs in different international educational settings. For example, Diab ( 2006 ) surveyed the feedback provision strategies of 14 university L2 teachers in Lebanon. The teachers were found to focus on word choice, text organization, writing style, and ideational content in their feedback. In a similar vein, using focus group interviews with L2 writing teachers at a Singaporean university, Lee, Leong, and Song ( 2016 ) found that these teachers’ feedback provision beliefs were shaped by students’ needs and that in their feedback provision, these teachers paid particular attention to grammar, text purpose, and text organization.

Wei and Cao ( 2020 ) also surveyed the feedback practices of 245 EFL lecturers working at Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese universities. The results revealed that the teacher participants preferred high-demand feedback (i.e., requiring students to respond to feedback) and indirect correction. Their preferences for such strategies were explained in light of training experiences, as well as contextual factors such as limited available resources. In the Chinese EFL context, Mao and Crosthwaite ( 2019 ) also analyzed questionnaire and interview data from five English writing teachers and found that the teachers frequently used indirect feedback predominantly targeting local instead of global errors. Additionally, their study showed a mismatch between the teachers’ beliefs and practices due to some contextual factors, including time limitations, heavy workloads, and perceptions of students’ attitudes toward feedback. In contrast, Lee ( 2011 ), who collected textual feedback data from 26 English teachers in Hong Kong and interviewed six of them, found that the teachers’ most commonly used feedback strategy was direct error correction with a focus on content and accuracy.

Two main limitations can be noted in the above writing teacher feedback studies. First, most of them involved a small number of participant teachers. This raises a question about whether these research findings are generalizable or not. Second, the feedback issues they covered were not comprehensive enough as they focused on limited feedback practices. A main research gap particularly concerns investigating teachers’ preferred or commonly used feedback modes. The very vast majority of the studies available about writing teachers’ use of feedback modes are of experimental nature (e.g., Alsahil et al., 2024 , Bakla, 2020 ; Cunningham and Link, 2021 ). Thus, there is a need for research profiling the feedback practices of a larger number of teachers and dealing with these practices from a more comprehensive angle.

Learner-centered writing feedback research

The writing feedback generated in learner-centered activities also represents an important information source learners can use to improve the quality of their texts. Literature indicates that the three most popular learner-centered feedback activities in writing classes are: self-evaluation, peer feedback, and automated writing evaluation. Increasing research has been published on these non-teacher feedback forms in the last few years.

The studies comparing teacher feedback with non-teacher forms represent a relatively recent research strand. These studies have notably increased since the early 2010s. Some studies have only compared the perceived usefulness of teacher feedback with peer feedback. For example, Miao et al. ( 2006 ) analyzed the questionnaire and interview data of two groups of EFL Chinese students and found that they preferred teacher feedback over peer feedback. Meanwhile, the meta-analysis conducted by Thirakunkovit and Chamcharatsri ( 2019 ) revealed that teacher feedback has a larger effect size in comparison to peer feedback. Yet, their further analysis of peer feedback research shows a notable difference between peer feedback with and without training.

Some other studies compared teacher feedback with self-evaluation and automated writing evaluation. For example, Dikli and Bleyle ( 2014 ) reported L2 students’ positive perceptions of automated writing evolution though they reported a preference for teacher feedback. Similarly, Özkanal and Gezen ( 2023 ) found that Turkish university students valued and integrated teacher feedback more than automated writing evaluation and peer feedback, respectively. In a more recent study, Sari and Han ( 2024 ) used a focus group interview with eight EFL students and found that they had positive attitudes toward using combined teacher and automated feedback.

There is a paucity of research on teacher evaluation of non-teacher forms or learner-centered feedback activities. The relevant research available dealt only with teacher perceptions and experiences of automated writing evaluation tools; though such research is even scarce (Koltovskaia, 2023 ). For example, Wilson et al. ( 2021 ) used focus group interviews to explore elementary writing teachers’ attitudes towards and experiences of using an automated writing evaluation in U.S. elementary schools. The teachers viewed automated writing evaluation tools may potentially fostering students’ motivation and autonomy, but raised concerns about the functionality of such tools causing some instructional challenges. In a classroom-based study with three L2 writing teachers in U.S. university classes, Li ( 2021 ) found that while they had positive perceptions of the tool, they reported limitations for it as a feedback alternative and concerns regarding the required ecological changes in the learning and instructional environment. In Koltovskaia’s ( 2023 ) interview-based study, six U.S. university teachers had a positive attitude towards relying upon automated writing evaluation as a feedback tool, but they viewed that such potential could be accomplished through practical instructional experiences.

In addition to the scarcity of research on teacher evaluation of non-teacher feedback forms, some contextual gaps also pertain to the studies on teacher evaluation of learner-centered feedback activities. As noted, all three studies have been conducted in non-Arab contexts. Accordingly, the issue of teacher evaluation of non-teacher feedback forms needs also to be addressed in under-explored contexts such as the Saudi one.

English writing feedback in the Saudi context

Not much research has been reported on English writing feedback practices in the Saudi context. Of the few research attempts made on teacher feedback are the ones reported by Alshahrani and Storch ( 2014 ) and Alkhatib ( 2015 ). Alkhatib ( 2015 ), for example, investigated how the feedback practices of ten English writing teachers at a Saudi university matched their instructional beliefs and also their students’ feedback preferences. Her data revealed matches and mismatches between teachers’ writing feedback beliefs and practices, and also between feedback practices and students’ preferences, particularly with regard to explicitness of written corrective feedback. The teachers tended to give comprehensive direct feedback on language-related aspects and indirect feedback on content and organization. Some factors were found to influence the teachers’ feedback practices such as time constraints and students’ levels.

As for researching non-teacher writing feedback forms in Saudi Arabia, the case is very similar to the international contexts highlighted above. On the one hand, the very scarce studies reported addressed the perceptions of students- rather than teachers- of learner-centered feedback activities. On the other hand, most of these studies explored automated writing evaluation. Aldukhail ( 2023 ), for instance, combined a questionnaire with semi-structured interview data to probe Saudi university students’ evaluation of self-directed, teacher, and peer feedback types. Her study revealed that teacher feedback was the most preferred feedback type, while peer feedback was the least preferred one. With regard to automated writing evaluation, the two studies reported by Alnasser ( 2022 ) and Alhabib and Alghammas ( 2023 ) generally indicate that Saudi university students had positive attitudes towards it but they were dissatisfied with the technical difficulties of tools, and their feedback on text content and organization, respectively.

In light of the above, the picture of English writing feedback practices and feedback activity uses in the Saudi context is still unclear. This has been caused by some noted limitations in previous studies. First, these studies involved small numbers of participant teachers, which may limit the generalizability of their findings. Second, such studies also examined a limited range of teachers’ feedback practices and activity uses, leaving gaps in our understanding of a wider scope of them. Finally, while research indicates the role of context-related factors in teachers’ feedback practices and activity uses, there have been scarce relevant studies in the Saudi context. Thus, there is a need to investigate the feedback practices of a larger number of Saudi university English writing teachers and to cover these practices more comprehensively in order to profile them in a clearer and more generalizable way.

The present study

To fill in the above research gaps, the present study explored multiple dimensions in English writing teachers’ perspectives on feedback provision practices and learner-centered feedback activity uses at Saudi universities. The study dealt with this topic through three original angles. First, it explored various dimensions in teacher feedback provision practices (feedback modes, and error correction explicitness, scope, and focus strategies) and also in teacher uses of learner-centered or non-teacher writing feedback forms. Second, it tried to profile teachers’ feedback practices and the beliefs rationalizing them by collecting open-ended qualitative data from a much larger number of participants in comparison to the previous relevant studies conducted in both the international educational settings and the Saudi one. Third, the study collected data from female and male teachers working at a number of Saudi universities rather than one university only. Accordingly, the study is guided by the following three questions:

RQ1: Which feedback provision modes do Saudi university English writing teachers rely upon more frequently, and what reasons do they give for the modes used?

RQ2: Which error correction explicitness, scope, and focus strategies do Saudi university English writing teachers use more frequently, and what reasons do they give for the error correction strategies used?

RQ3: To what extent do Saudi university English writing teachers use learner-centered feedback activities in their classes, and what reasons do they give for their reported uses of these activities?

By answering these questions, the present study could provide important implications for improving feedback practices and the implementation of learner-centered activities in English writing classes at Saudi universities. Such instructional improvements could in turn lead to bringing about the desired changes in students’ writing performance.

To answer the research questions, the study drew upon the qualitative approach. Literature indicates the qualitative research approach is helpful in exploring a central educational phenomenon and developing a detailed understanding of it (Creswell, 2012 ). It is mainly used to inductively explore how people are experiencing the target educational phenomena, and their interpretations of these experiences without having any hypotheses to confirm or reject (Bogdan and Biklen, 1997 ; Lodico et al., 2006 ). In line with the qualitative approach, we decided to collect data using a questionnaire part with open-ended questions instead of interviews to access the largest possible number of research participants, and in turn to profile the participants’ feedback practices more reliably. According to Creswell ( 2012 ), open-ended questions help research participants best voice their experiences without any restrictions and allow researchers to explore participants’ reasons for the reported practices.

Participants

The data of this study was collected from a sample of English writing teachers who were working in English language departments and programs at several Saudi universities. They were faculty members teaching English writing along with some other language areas and/or linguistics courses in their workplaces. They were working primarily at English teacher and/or translator education programs in which students have to take 4–6 English writing courses; each course is taught for 2–3 h a week over one academic term. At these programs, the number of students attending writing courses ranges normally from 15 to 25.

The questionnaire responses analyzed in this paper were gathered from 74 teachers. Forty-eight teachers were females and twenty-six were males. The 74 teachers were working at eight Saudi universities during the data collection stage. The larger number of these teachers were Saudi; other teacher nationalities include Egyptian, Indian, Jordanian, Sudanese, and Yemeni. They had varied academic degrees; 45 were assistant professors and the remaining 29 participants were in other academic ranks (lecturers = 16, associate professors = 8, professors = 5). Their teaching experiences also varied and ranged mostly from five to 20 years. The teachers’ writing instruction experiences and the number of writing courses they taught also varied. During the data collection stage, most participants had taught more than five writing courses. All the teachers participated in the study based on informed consent indicated in the questionnaire introduction which explained to them the purpose of the study, confirmed the protection of their privacy and personal data, and indicated that submitting their questionnaire responses means approving to take part voluntarily in the study.

The open-ended questionnaire

As indicated above, in this study we drew upon open-ended questionnaire responses for accessing the largest possible number of teachers, allowing participant teachers to report their practices and reasons freely without restrictions, and minimizing participants’ potential social desirability, which may increase with using some other similar data sources such as interviews. We specifically used a questionnaire part with eight open-ended questions for collecting the data for this study. The eight open-ended questions were a part of a whole questionnaire– with other closed-ended parts– used in a larger research project. The open-ended questions were developed based on the purpose of the study and the relevant literature on writing feedback modes, error correction strategy types, and non-teacher feedback forms (e.g., Abdel Latif et al., 2024 ; Ferris, 2007 ; Ferris and Hedgcock, 2023 ). Thus, with the 74 teacher responses obtained, it is assumed that the open-ended questionnaire questions have enabled us to collect detailed and objective feedback practices and activity uses in the target research context.

We worked collaboratively on developing the open-ended questions which were written in English. Some revisions in the phrasing of the questions were made based on our mutual discussion of the suitability of the questions. In its final version, the questionnaire starts with a bio part about the respondent’s workplace, nationality, and teaching and writing instruction experiences. This bio section is followed by the main questionnaire with its closed-ended and open-ended parts. The open-ended questionnaire part used in this study includes eight questions about the teachers’ uses of feedback delivery modes, error correction strategies, and learner-centered feedback activities, and the factors or beliefs accounting for these uses. Each question about the feedback provision modes/strategies, or a learner-centered activity was followed by another question part about the reason for the reported response. For example: When correcting students’ English writing errors, do you correct them directly (by giving the correct alternative) or indirectly (by highlighting them or indicating their types)? Please explain in detail and give reasons.; To what extent do you use peer feedback or evaluation activities in the English writing classes you teach? Please explain in detail and give reasons.

Data collection and analysis

The data of this study was collected over eight weeks. The open-ended questionnaire was written using Google Forms, and its URL was circulated to the faculty members working at Saudi universities. This was done by individually sending the questionnaire webpage to some faculty members and also to groups of them through WhatsApp or emails. We also asked some faculty members to circulate the questionnaire URL to their workplace colleagues. Only those faculty members with experience in teaching English writing were asked to complete the questionnaire. Eighty-two responses were initially obtained from the target sample, but only 74 teachers completed all the open-ended questions reliably. The remaining eight teachers responded to most open-ended questions by just adding a dot or letter to skip answering them after completing the closed-ended questionnaire parts; therefore, their open-ended responses were excluded from the analysis. Accordingly, this qualitative data collection process ended up with gathering 74 reliable questionnaire responses.

The data analysis process took several stages. We worked undependably and then collaboratively on analyzing the qualitative data drawing upon the following guidelines proposed by Lodico et al. ( 2006 ): sorting out the data by organizing the respondents’ answers to each question in one section, exploring the data by initially reading the respondents’ answers to each questionnaire question and comparing them, identifying the related descriptions of the participants’ reported feedback provision and classroom practices and their reported reasons, and confirming the evidence emerging from the data. After independently exploring potential emerging themes in the data, we met online to discuss the main emerging themes each one identified in the data. Through such discussion, we resolved the slight differences noted in our data analysis. To verify the credibility and trustworthiness of the qualitative data analysis at this early stage, we asked an expert applied linguist to read our agreed-upon data analysis framework and to indicate whether or not he would agree with the themes and categories identified. An inter-coding agreement rate of 92% was found between our data analysis and the expert applied linguist’s evaluation and analysis. We used the finally agreed-upon framework to analyze the whole data set and to look for more related details supporting each theme. The last stage involved revising the sub-themes relevant to the finally agreed-upon main data analysis categories, and calculating some of them when needed (Guest et al., 2012 ).

Results of the study

The results of the data analysis are provided in the following subsections. The presentation of these results is guided by the research questions as it incorporates the teachers’ reported uses of feedback practices or activities along with their reasons: the teachers’ feedback delivery modes section provides the answer to RQ1, error correction strategies section gives the answer to RQ2, and the content of the teachers’ use of learner-centered feedback activities section relates to the answer to RQ3.

The teachers’ feedback delivery modes

Dominant feedback modes.

In their answers to the first two open-ended questionnaire questions which concern feedback delivery modes, the respondent teachers reported using different approaches to feedback provision. Overall, the teachers’ answers showed that handwritten feedback is their most preferred and commonly used mode. Specifically, 47 teachers reported depending on handwritten feedback either as their only delivery mode or in combination with another one. Collectively, they view providing students with handwritten comments as (a) a more effective, clearer, and desirable mode for students; (b) more helpful for students in their future writing tasks; (c) more focused than oral feedback; and (d) easier, faster and more convenient for themselves as teachers than the electronic or audio modes. The following exemplary answers indicate these opinions:

Handwritten feedback is easier and faster. Also, I can write down quickly the comments that pop into my mind. The large number of students’ essays makes it difficult to evaluate using electronic comments. Moreover, electronic feedback is a technique that I did not learn how to use .

Written comments are more effective as students learn from their mistakes and they can be discussed orally if the student needs more help .

I am a paper-and-pencil person. Plus, I feel students pay more attention to written comments. They are more memorable and handwriting itself carries meaning .

As noted in the above answers, some participant teachers developed a longstanding reliance on handwritten feedback as part of their professional careers. That is why they do not like using technology in feedback provision.

The teachers’ second most commonly used mode is oral feedback. According to the teachers reporting it as their preferred mode ( n  = 37), oral feedback is personalized and immediate, and it is also an easier and less time-consuming feedback option that meets students’ psychological and learning needs. Two main issues are worth noting with regard to the oral feedback practices the teachers reported. First, it is used in most cases in combination with handwritten comments or error correction. Second, the teachers mentioned using the following three forms of oral feedback:

The one-to-one conferencing in which they discuss with students their writing .

Individual– normally brief– comments given to each student in the classroom .

Oral comments were given to the whole class on sample texts written by the students .

Conferencing is the least used form of the three oral ones; only five teachers reported using it. Conversely, the individual comments given to each student in the classroom represent the teachers’ most used oral feedback form ( n  = 24 teachers). The following answer summarizes how this oral feedback takes place in the classroom:

I believe individual oral comments are the most useful for students as they understand the source of their errors through the face-to-face discussion inside the class where I walk to each student and point out her writing errors and explain their causes .

On the other hand, 12 teachers mentioned giving oral comments to the whole class on sample texts written by students. The following two answers indicate the different approaches some of these teachers use in providing oral group feedback:

Sometimes, I show one of my student’s written work after taking his permission. I ask all students to find the mistakes and we discuss them together .

After individual oral comments and once all students have submitted their work, I collect sample anonymous essays (collection of mistakes) and present them asking students to correct the mistakes. From my experience, this is an excellent way for students to notice their mistakes .

As noted in the above answers, some teachers give students oral group feedback on anonymous texts they submit, whereas others discuss students’ texts before their classmates non-anonymously. This latter technique could cause students’ some writing anxiety and apprehension symptoms.

Regarding electronic feedback, 17 teachers reported using it with their students. Compared to other feedback modes, these teachers find electronic comments easier to manage and more comfortable to deliver. Meanwhile, they also view that with electronic feedback, students have the advantage of obtaining comments with clearer features that are easier to read and understand, and change. The following answers clearly indicate these reasons:

For me, I prefer to make comments in the email because this is easy. Handwriting is tiring, and nowadays we rarely write on paper .

I like to write comments electronically because I feel it is easier for students to read and understand. I can edit directly, or write comments on the side, or write elaborate comments at the end. I have more space than in a hard copy .

The first answer above implies that some teachers provide students with electronic feedback using emails. Other teachers mentioned they include their comments using specific platforms. It is also noteworthy that four teachers also mentioned electronic feedback because their students submit texts electronically via emails or platforms.

The teachers’ answers showed that audio-recorded feedback was their least used feedback mode. Only five teachers reported using it. For example:

I like also to give audio-recorded comments in the first draft because this allows me to elaborate more on their written texts in terms of organization and ideas .

Recorded notes were useful when we were teaching online during COVID-19 .

As noted in the above answers, some teachers use audio-recorded feedback for a functional reason (e.g., to give more detailed comments) or due to some extenuating circumstances such as emergency online teaching.

Using combinations of feedback modes

In addition to depending primarily on one particular feedback delivery mode, some teachers were found to use two or more modes in their feedback provision. The teachers’ answers revealed they use the following three different combinations of feedback modes:

Combining handwritten and oral feedback (n   =   9);

Combining electronic and oral feedback (n   =   4 teachers);

Combining three feedback modes (n   =   5 teachers) .

The 11 teachers who mentioned combining handwritten and oral feedback were found to ask students to submit their texts in a non-electronic format. These teachers’ answers suggest that with this combined handwritten-oral feedback mode, they seem to provide students with a minimal level of handwritten comments in these situations, perhaps due to the large number of students and classroom time limitations. The following two answers support this conclusion:

I usually use handwritten comments because I ask students to write in class using pen and paper. I use oral comments to the whole class about the repeated errors and techniques that would help them to overcome them .

I use handwritten comments on the paper while correcting the first draft, and oral comments for the whole class so they all can learn from them .

On the other hand, a richer feedback level is noted in the answers given by two teachers combining electronic and oral feedback:

I give students both electronic and oral comments. After correcting their assignments, I compile them anonymously in a PDF file, send them on the general chat box on Teams, and ask students to specify an online extra class so that I explain each student’s mistakes. There is no time in classes to point out all students’ mistakes. Therefore, the online meeting helps me a lot and students’ levels also improve notably .

What I do is receive students’ essays through emails. Then I evaluate them and add my comments on them. Following this, I add all the evaluated essays in one Word file and discuss all the essays anonymously with all students in the classroom using the projector to show them their writing weaknesses and strengths. After the class, I send students this file through email. I think my students always like this .

In the above answers, we could feel that the two teachers have self-satisfaction with this combined handwritten-oral feedback; a self-satisfaction level which has been reinforced by students’ feedback on their feedback practices (for example: I think my students always like this ).

In addition to the above two feedback mode combinations, five teachers said they use three feedback modes. The following answer, for instance, exemplifies an oral, audio-recorded, and handwritten feedback mode combination:

I like to use oral comments. I do it in two ways: the face-to-face comments in the classroom, and sending students private audio messages on Telegram so that each student can ask me about something on her essay. I provide my feedback by replying to my students in an audio message on Telegram. Besides, I also like to give students written feedback either through Teams or on paper .

The five teachers’ answers generally indicate their feedback mode combinations take two patterns: (a) handwritten, electronic, and oral comments ( n  = 3); and (b) oral, handwritten, and audio-recorded comments ( n  = 2).

Error correction strategies

The teachers’ use of direct versus indirect error correction.

The teachers’ answers to the third open-ended question were analyzed to understand the explicitness in their error correction of students’ writing, and their reasons. Thirty-three teachers mentioned that they use direct error correction as they have to take into account students’ language maturity levels, and also to help them understand their errors and thus avoid them in future writing tasks. The following answers exemplify these reasons:

Without giving students the correct alternative, they may not realize the error and cannot understand why it is incorrect. Giving the correct alternative will help them compare and know why it is more suitable than the other and will show them a model they can learn from .

I assume that when errors are not corrected, they might be made again. That is why I correct them in their texts, and explain the most common ones in class orally to give other students an overall idea of the most commonly committed mistakes .

The last exemplary answer above shows that in addition to written corrective feedback, some teachers correct students’ errors orally.

On the other hand, a relatively smaller number of teachers ( n  = 29) said they mainly use indirect error correction. They view it could helping students think actively about their errors and how to correct them. They also think that time constraints and students’ numbers make it difficult for them to correct errors directly. For example:

It is hard to rewrite corrections for all students. They need to figure out their mistakes and correct them .

I would like to make students try to find the alternatives themselves. In my opinion, this will have a positive impact on their writing .

Regarding the nature of the teachers’ indirect error correction, some teachers said they highlight the errors only, others said they highlight them and indicate their types, whereas two teachers mentioned they correct some errors directly and then highlight other ones for students to correct.

For a third group of teachers ( n  = 12), using direct or indirect error corrections depends on a number of variables. These include students’ numbers and levels, draft type (first versus final draft), course stage, and assignment type. It is noted that the phrase “ it depends ” is very frequent in these 12 teachers’ answers. For example:

It depends on how far we are in the course and whether direct correction has already been given to them on previous essays or not .

It depends on students’ level; high-proficiency students benefit more from highlighting the errors and identifying their types in contrast to low-proficiency students .

I correct errors directly in the early assignments to help students recognize the right alternatives. After that, I only specify the type of error for students to help them think about it .

The above answers imply that the teachers’ error correction strategies are mediated by different contextual factors and that they are only caused by their preferences or beliefs.

The teachers’ use of comprehensive versus selective error correction

The fourth open-ended questionnaire question concerns the teachers’ use of comprehensive versus selective error correction. In their answers to this question, the larger group of teachers ( n  = 43) reported adopting a comprehensive approach to correcting students’ writing errors. Like the previous case of the teachers with interest in direct error direction, the teachers with the comprehensive error correction orientation also view it helps students be aware of their English writing errors. As one of them summarizes it:

Students need to see all the errors corrected; otherwise, they would regard what is left uncorrected as correct .

It is worth mentioning that there are some slight differences in this group of teachers’ comprehensive approaches to error correction; while most teachers mentioned correcting all writing errors in students’ written texts, five teachers in the group referred to correcting a large number of students’ writing errors. Two other teachers in the group used the phrase “ I try… ” to describe their attempts to correct all writing errors. These two notes generally suggest that some teachers in this group tend to correct all errors in students’ texts, but they find it a challenging task.

The second group of teachers ( n  = 23) reported using a selective or focused approach to correcting students’ writing errors. According to these teachers, such a focused error correction approach is a better alternative as it prioritizes major writing problems and fosters students’ error awareness raising. Some teachers in this group also regard this approach as non-detrimental to students’ writing motivation and meets their optimal error correction expectations, whereas other teachers believe that in some cases students’ writing errors are too many to be dealt with either explicitly or implicitly. The following answers further explain these views:

Students usually don’t pay attention to the detailed comments .

From my experience, students can feel demotivated if they see that they need to fix many errors. To avoid such pressure and to keep them motivated, I prefer to focus on specific and attainable goals suitable for their current level .

Sometimes you don’t even know where to start with a sentence because learners often have more than one level of error in one sentence .

With such issues in mind, this group of teachers prefers to focus only on correcting selected errors deemed important for their students to avoid.

In a way similar to the teachers’ perspectives on direct versus indirect error correction, a third group of teachers ( n  = 8) also reported that covering students’ errors comprehensively or selectively depends primarily on some factors such as the error type, students’ levels and numbers, the time available, and the writing course stage. For example:

It differs based on the types of errors (simple versus complicated errors) .

I usually start any writing course I teach by correcting a large number of errors, particularly with the initial drafts. Then my error correction becomes gradually less comprehensive on the final drafts and also towards the end of the course because it will be very time-consuming if I keep providing feedback in this way .

As noted in the answers, the factors influencing the teachers’ error correction selectivity or comprehensiveness are almost identical to the ones accounting partially for their error correction explicitness or implicitness (see the above subsection). This was also noted in the influential factors a few teachers mentioned regarding their error correction focus. In other words, there are some common factors influencing some teachers’ varied approaches to error correction explicitness, comprehensiveness, and focus.

The teachers’ error correction focus

The main dimensions determining the quality of written texts include the content, organization, grammar or language use, vocabulary, and mechanics (spelling and punctuation) (see Jacobs et al., 1981 ). Broadly speaking, we can categorize these dimensions into two main categories: text ideational and organizational aspects versus language-related ones. The teachers’ answers to the fifth open-ended questionnaire question showed important issues with their error correction focus. Overall, the teachers were divided into three groups in this regard: a group focusing on text ideational and organizational aspects only ( n  = 35); a group focusing on language-related aspects only ( n  = 28); and a third one addressing both types of aspects ( n  = 11). The following three exemplary answers represent these three error correction focus orientations, respectively:

I try to cover all the aspects (organization, ideas, and mechanics) to help students improve their writing while focusing more on the skills provided by the course .

I focus on what they would need to learn the most. Sometimes, I work on a particular aspect, such as (punctuation or capitalization issues, only) if I feel that students are having apparent issues with the correct usage of these elements .

Generally in my feedback, I focus on different aspects of writing (coherence, organization, and sentence structure) .

The feedback focus areas the teachers frequently referred to in their answers include text ideas, organization, text coherence, punctuation, and grammar, respectively. The teachers’ answers generally suggest that many of them do not seem to provide their students with a deep level of language-related feedback; the teachers’ brief descriptions only concern correcting students’ punctuation and grammar errors but not their vocabulary.

Seven teachers’ answers revealed that the text draft plays an important role in their feedback focus. They reported they tend to focus on different aspects when providing feedback on multiple text drafts. However, these teachers’ focus areas vary. For example, the following two answers show the focus area of two teachers:

In any required assignment, I like to give students feedback on two drafts if time allows. In the first draft, I direct students to the overall organization of the essay and idea coherence. In the last draft, I give detailed feedback on many aspects of their writing such as grammar and punctuation .

When reading the student’s first draft, I like to comment on students’ written text in terms of organization and ideas. The second draft is the one that will be graded; therefore I have to comment on all aspects particularly students’ language .

The first answer shows that the teacher evaluates text organizational and ideational aspects in the earlier draft, but focuses on grammar and punctuation in the second draft; the opposite case is noted in the second teacher’s answer.

The teachers’ use of learner-centered feedback activities

Using student self-evaluation activities.

The teachers’ responses to the last three open-ended questionnaire questions were used to profile their use of learner-centered feedback activities and beliefs about them. Regarding self-evaluation activities, more than two-thirds of the teachers ( n  = 53) said they do not use them in their writing classes. According to these teachers, a number of factors make it difficult to use this kind of activity such as students’ unfamiliarity with them, students’ inability to detect their own errors, and time limits. The following sample answers clarify these reasons:

Students are not familiar with them .

I believe students have difficulty doing that due to their level .

I am afraid, that students don’t notice their errors .

Three teachers gave two other unique reasons for not using self-evaluation activities in the classroom. For one teacher, students self-evaluate their texts indirectly; and for the two other teachers, students need some time gap between writing the text and self-reviewing it to effectively realize their errors:

I don’t use this kind of activity because students already do it indirectly before they submit their essays .

There is no need. But I always ask students to leave their first essay draft for some time and then go back and check it. In this way, they will spot some naive writing errors they were not aware of after immediately writing the essay .

As may be inferred from the second answer, the time gap needed for helping students effectively realize their errors is not likely to be met in a one- or two-hour writing class.

With regard to the 21 teachers who reported using student self-evaluation activities in their writing classes, they view that these activities help students discover their errors, reflect upon them, become more motivated, and be autonomous learners. For example:

I use self-evaluation activities to allow students to realize their mistakes and understand why they are incorrect and how to improve their writing .

I always encourage my students to assess their own writing since it is very effective in finding out the gaps in their work and this helps them to be more independent .

A few teachers described the ways they engage students in evaluating their own texts. Their descriptions, however, are brief and do not reveal many details about the implementation of self-evaluation activities in their classes (for example, their frequency, duration, the teacher’s role, and the nature of the text drafts used). Two teachers, for instance, said they use text quality rubrics to guide these activities, and two other ones referred to using model texts to help students compare theirs to theirs. Overall, the teachers’ reported attitudes and uses indicate that self-evaluation activities are unpopular in their writing classes.

Using peer feedback activities

Unlike their reported uses of self-evaluation activities, about three-quarters of the teachers ( n  = 57) mentioned employing peer feedback in their English writing classes. It is worth noting, however, that five of these teachers used the word “sometimes” in their descriptions of the use of peer feedback. The teachers gave multiple reasons for such use. Collectively, these reasons include: changing teaching methods and classroom atmosphere, motivating students, helping students learn from each other, and improving their essay assessment ability and communication skills. For example:

I use it to help students get an idea of other students’ writings that help them to evaluate their own writing as well. At the same time, they benefit from giving and providing feedback .

Students can see others’ mistakes in a better way than seeing their own mistakes; this will eventually make them aware of how to write properly .

The teachers with this positive attitude, however, did not report many details about the way they implement peer feedback activities in the classroom. Their descriptions include phrases such as “ encourage students ”, “ ask students ” “ to share essays ”, “ to exchange essays ”, “ to share thoughts ”, “ to collaborate ”, and “ to discuss ”. Two teachers talked about dividing peer groups into students of varied writing abilities, and one teacher mentioned guiding these activities by using model texts.

The 17 teachers with a negative attitude toward using peer feedback also have their reasons. For these teachers, there are no real gains from peer feedback activities because students do not take their classmates’ evaluations seriously and do not regard them as reliable sources, and they apprehend peer evaluation. Besides, students’ similar low levels do not help in effectively implementing peer feedback activities. The following answers illustrate these concerns:

Students do not take peer feedback activities seriously; sometimes they talk about irrelevant life issues during them .

It is less likable to me. I think many students do not like to criticize each other’s writing .

Students don’t like their mistakes to be seen by friends .

Due to these reasons, these teachers, or at least a number of them view peer feedback as a time-consuming activity in writing classes.

Using automated writing evaluation activities

Compared to self-evaluation and peer feedback activities, the teachers reported the least positive attitude towards using automated writing evaluation. Sixty teachers answered the relevant questionnaire question negatively. Some of these teachers do not trust automated writing evaluation applications and feel they are not helpful enough as they just provide students with text grammar and mechanics correction suggestions, but do not make them aware of their nature or causes. Other teachers believe that students will not obtain significant learning gains from using them. Therefore, they regard such activities as time-consuming, particularly if we take into account that students can use them on their own. For example:

Don’t use it. Never thought about it. I think students will naturally use it at home .

I don’t like to use it because students will add the suggested changes without understanding why their writing is wrong .

For the 14 teachers who reported a positive attitude towards using automated writing evaluation as a classroom-based tool, they feel it could guide students properly, and help them to write correctly. They also believe it could save time, and perceive its use in the classroom as a way for coping with technological advances and for reinforcing students’ out-of-classroom writing learning experiences. As one teacher summarizes this last reason:

I use automated writing evaluation because students already use it; so, I teach them how to use it and the best ways of making use of online apps .

In some of the relevant answers these teachers provided, we can also note the words “advise” and “recommend”. In other words, some of these teachers also suggest particular more reliable automated writing evaluation applications for their students to use independently. Taking all the positive answers into account, we may generally conclude that a few teachers in this context occasionally integrate automated writing evaluation applications in their classes, and/or alternatively advise students to use them out of classrooms.

Discussion and conclusions

The results above show the complexity of the teachers’ feedback provision process. The teachers in this study reported their dependence on some feedback delivery modes and error correction strategies more than others. Both handwritten and oral feedback modes are more dominant in their feedback practices than the other modes. Meanwhile, a small group of teachers reported they combined two or three feedback modes. With regard to direct versus indirect error correction, a relatively larger group of teachers mentioned using direct error correction. While these results concur with Lee’s ( 2011 ) findings, they contradict those reported by Alshahrani and Storch ( 2014 ), Liu and Wu ( 2019 ), Mao and Crosthwaite ( 2019 ), Wei and Cao ( 2020 ) whose participant teachers had preferences for indirect feedback. Regarding error correction scope (i.e., comprehensive versus selective), a relatively larger group of teachers reported correcting students’ writing errors comprehensively. These results are congruent with those of Alshahrani and Storch ( 2014 ) and Alkhatib ( 2015 ) in indicating that comprehensive error correction is more common in Saudi university English writing classes.

The study showed the teachers are somewhat divided in their focus on text ideational and organizational versus language-related aspects, but more teachers were found to pay slightly more attention to text ideational and organizational aspects. Specifically, the textual areas the teachers reported focusing on in their feedback are text ideas, organization, text coherence, punctuation, and grammar, respectively. These results contradict those of Diab ( 2006 ), Lee ( 2011 ), Lee et al. ( 2016 ), and Mao and Crosthwaite ( 2019 ) whose participant teachers were found to prioritize language accuracy error correction. In their language-related error correction focus, the teachers were found to be concerned with grammar and mechanics in particular. Some previous studies (e.g., Alshahrani and Storch, 2014 ; Cheng et al., 2021 ) strongly support this point. The conclusion drawn here is that in many L2 writing contexts, teachers focus far more on grammar and mechanics than vocabulary. The study also emphasizes previous research findings (e.g., Alkhatib, 2015 ; Chen, 2023 ; Lee et al., 2016 ) that many L2 writing teachers view considering students’ needs as a decisive factor in prioritizing their feedback provision practices. What may seem unique in the results of the present study is that many teachers use combinations of feedback modes and direct-indirect and comprehensive-selective error correction. This may be inconsistent with the previous conceptualizations proposing that writing teachers normally use one particular feedback mode or error correction type rather than the other (e.g., Ferris, 2007 ; Ferris and Hedgcock, 2023 ). Finally, the teachers considered some factors potentially influencing their use of particular feedback modes and error correction explicitness, scope, or focus strategies. Collectively, these factors are text draft type (first versus final draft), writing error type, assignment type, students’ levels and numbers, available time, and the writing course stage. Some similar contextual factors such as time limitations and workload were also found in previous studies (e.g., Mao and Crosthwaite, 2019 ; Wei and Cao, 2020 ).

As for the teachers’ use of learner-centered feedback activities, it was found that a larger number of them make use of peer feedback activities only in their classes, and neglect student self-evaluation and automated writing evaluation. The teachers’ reasons varied depending on the activity type, but it seems that the perceived value of the particular activity has influenced their attitude towards using it. Overall, these results confirm previous learner and teacher research findings (e.g., Aldukhail, 2023 ; Alhabib and Alghammas, 2023 ; Alnasser, 2022 ; Koltovskaia, 2023 ; Li, 2021 ; Wilson et al., 2021 ) about the teachers’ concerns related to using student self-evaluation and automated writing evaluation activities in writing classes.

The results of this study indicate the need for fostering some particular dimensions in Saudi university teachers’ L2 writing feedback literacy. As noted in the results section, there seem to be shortcomings in the teachers’ practices regarding, for instance, making more effective use of electronic feedback, providing more comprehensive language-related feedback, and optimizing peer feedback activities. Teachers need to receive adequate training in these dimensions. In-service teacher training should also focus on raising teachers’ awareness of how to effectively use self-evaluation and automated writing evaluation activities in their writing classes. Given that large class sizes hinder effective feedback practices, there is a need to minimize students’ number in Saudi university English writing classes. With an average number of about 15 students in one class, feedback practices in English writing classes are expected to significantly improve. These recommendations are also generalizable to the L2 writing instruction context with characteristics similar to the Saudi one.

The qualitative approach used in this study has enabled us to provide a detailed profile of teacher feedback practices and feedback activity uses in Saudi university English writing classes. Yet, further research is still needed to complete this profile. Future studies could combine writing teacher feedback open questionnaire data with large sample feedback comments. This will add significantly to profiling feedback practices in the Saudi context. Important also is comparing writing teacher and learner feedback perspectives using qualitative and quantitative data. Such methodological approaches may be also adopted in examining writing feedback practices in other international contexts. By profiling feedback perspectives in this way, we could identify writing teacher feedback literacy needs and learner feedback expectations.

Data availability

The data is not publicly available to protect the participants’ privacy and confidentiality. The data of this study will be available upon request to the corresponding author at [email protected].

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported and funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU) (grant number IMSIU-RG23043).

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Muhammad M. M. Abdel Latif

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Asma Alsahil & Zainab Alsuhaibani

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Muhammad MM Abdel Latif: conceptualization, methodology, data analysis, writing, review and editing, project supervision. Asma Alsahil: methodology, investigation, data curation, data analysis, writing, review and editing. Zainab Alsuhaibani: methodology, investigation, data analysis, writing, review and editing, funding acquisition.

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Abdel Latif, M.M.M., Alsahil, A. & Alsuhaibani, Z. Profiling EFL writing teachers’ feedback provision practices and activity uses in Saudi universities. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1120 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03639-5

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Peer Review

About this Strategy Guide

This strategy guide explains how you can employ peer review in your classroom, guiding students as they offer each other constructive feedback to improve their writing and communication skills.

Research Basis

Strategy in practice, related resources.

Peer review refers to the many ways in which students can share their creative work with peers for constructive feedback and then use this feedback to revise and improve their work. For the writing process, revision is as important as drafting, but students often feel they cannot let go of their original words. By keeping an audience in mind and participating in focused peer review interactions, students can offer productive feedback, accept constructive criticism, and master revision. This is true of other creative projects, such as class presentations, podcasts, or blogs. Online tools can also help to broaden the concept of “peers.” Real literacy happens in a community of people who can make meaningful connections. Peer review facilitates the type of social interaction and collaboration that is vital for student learning.

Peer review can be used for different class projects in a variety of ways:

• Teach students to use these three steps to give peer feedback: Compliments, Suggestions, and Corrections (see the Peer Edit with Perfection! Handout ). Explain that starting with something positive makes the other person feel encouraged. You can also use Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial to walk through the feedback process with your students.
• Provide students with sentence starter templates, such as, “My favorite part was _________ because __________,” to guide students in offering different types of feedback. After they start with something positive, have students point out areas that could be improved in terms of content, style, voice, and clarity by using another sentence starter (“A suggestion I can offer for improvement is ___________.”). The peer editor can mark spelling and grammar errors directly on the piece of writing.
• Teach students what constructive feedback means (providing feedback about areas that need improvement without criticizing the person). Feedback should be done in an analytical, kind way. Model this for students and ask them to try it. Show examples of vague feedback (“This should be more interesting.”) and clear feedback (“A description of the main character would help me to imagine him/her better.”), and have students point out which kind of feedback is most useful. The Peer Editing Guide offers general advice on how to listen to and receive feedback, as well as how to give it.
• For younger students, explain that you need helpers, so you will show them how to be writing teachers for each other. Model peer review by reading a student’s piece aloud, then have him/her leave the room while you discuss with the rest of the class what questions you will ask to elicit more detail. Have the student return, and ask those questions. Model active listening by repeating what the student says in different words. For very young students, encourage them to share personal stories with the class through drawings before gradually writing their stories.
• Create a chart and display it in the classroom so students can see the important steps of peer editing. For example, the steps might include: 1. Read the piece, 2. Say what you like about it, 3. Ask what the main idea is, 4. Listen, 5. Say “Add that, please” when you hear a good detail. For pre-writers, “Add that, please” might mean adding a detail to a picture. Make the chart gradually longer for subsequent sessions, and invite students to add dialogue to it based on what worked for them.
• Incorporate ways in which students will review each other’s work when you plan projects. Take note of which students work well together during peer review sessions for future pairings. Consider having two peer review sessions for the same project to encourage more thought and several rounds of revision.
• Have students review and comment on each other’s work online using Nicenet , a class blog, or class website.
• Have students write a class book, then take turns bringing it home to read. Encourage them to discuss the writing process with their parents or guardians and explain how they offered constructive feedback to help their peers.

Using peer review strategies, your students can learn to reflect on their own work, self-edit, listen to their peers, and assist others with constructive feedback. By guiding peer editing, you will ensure that your students’ work reflects thoughtful revision.

• Lesson Plans
• Strategy Guides

Using a collaborative story written by students, the teacher leads a shared-revising activity to help students consider content when revising, with students participating in the marking of text revisions.

After analyzing Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, students create a class book with artwork and information about their ancestry, traditions, and recipes, followed by a potluck lunch.

Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.

While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.

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Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Expert Guide

Looking for creative writing lesson plans? I am developing creative writing lesson ideas! 

I’ve written and revamped my creative writing lesson plans and learned that the first week is vital in establishing a community of writers, in outlining expectations, and in working with a new class.

What are some good creative writing exercises?

Some good creative writing exercises include writing prompts, free writing, character development exercises, and fun writing games.

The first week, though, we establish trust—and then we begin powerful creative writing exercises to engage young writers and our community.

How can add encouragement in creative writing lesson plans?

I’ve found students are shy about writing creatively, about sharing pieces of themselves. A large part of the first week of class is setting the atmosphere, of showing everyone they are free to create. And! These concepts will apply to most writing lesson plans for secondary students.

Feel free to give me feedback and borrow all that you need! Below, find my detailed my day-by-day progression for creative writing lesson plans  for week one.

Creative Writing Lesson Day One: Sharing my vision

Comfort matters for young writers. I’m not a huge “ice breaker” type of teacher—I build relationships slowly. Still, to get student writing, we must establish that everyone is safe to explore, to write, to error.

Here are some ideas.

Tone and attitude

For day one with any lesson plan for creative writing, I think it is important to set the tone, to immediately establish what I want from my creative writing students. And that is…

them not to write for me, but for them. I don’t want them writing what they think I want them to write.

Does that make sense? Limitations hurt young writers. My overall tone and attitude toward young writers is that we will work together, create and write together, provide feedback, and invest in ourselves. Older kiddos think that they must provide teachers with the “correct” writing. In such a course, restrictions and boundaries largely go out the window.

Plus, I specifically outline what I believe they can produce in a presentation to set people at ease.

The presentation covers expectations for the class. As the teacher, I am a sort of writing coach with ideas that will not work for everyone. Writers should explore different methods and realize what works for them. First, not everyone will appreciate every type of writing—which is fine. But as a writing community, we must accept that we may not be the target audience for every piece of work.

Therefore, respect is a large component of the class. Be sure to outline what interactions you find acceptable within your classroom community.

Next, as their writing coach, I plan to provide ideas and tools for use. Their job is to decide what tools work for their creative endeavors. My overall message is uplifting and encouraging.

Finally, when we finish, I share the presentation with students so they can consult it throughout the semester. The presentation works nicely for meet-the-teacher night, too!

After covering classroom procedures and rules, I show students a TED Talk. We watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie. My goal is to show students that I don’t have a predetermined idea concerning what they should write. This discussion takes the rest of the class period.

Establishing comfort and excitement precedents my other creative writing activities. Personalize your “vision” activities for your lessons in creative writing. Honestly, doing this pre-work builds relationships with students and creates a positive classroom atmosphere.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Two: Activating prior knowledge

Students possess prior knowledge concerning creative writing, but they might not consider that. Students should realize that they know what constitutes a great story. They might not realize that yet. An easy lesson plan for creative writing that will pay off later is to activate prior knowledge. Brainstorm creative, memorable, unforgettable stories with students. Share your thoughts too! You will start to build relationships with students who share the same tastes as you (and those that are completely different!).

Activation activity

During this activity, I want to see how students work together, and I want to build a rapport with students. Additionally, activating prior knowledge provides a smooth transition into other creative writing activities.

This creative writing activity is simple:

I ask students to tell me memorable stories—books, play, tv shows, movies—and I write them on the board. I add and veto as appropriate. Normally doing these classroom discussions, we dive deeper into comedies and creative nonfiction. Sometimes as we work, I ask students to research certain stories and definitions. I normally take a picture of our work so that I can build creative writing lessons from students’ interests.

This takes longer than you might think, but I like that aspect. This information can help me shape my future lessons.

With about twenty minutes left in class, I ask students to form small groups. I want them to derive what makes these stories memorable. Since students complete group and partner activities in this class, I also watch and see how they interact.

Students often draw conclusions about what makes a story memorable:

• Realistic or true-to-life characters.
• Meaningful themes.
• Funny or sad events.

All of this information will be used later as students work on their own writing. Many times, my creative writing lessons overlap, especially concerning the feedback from young writers.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Three: Brainstorming and a graphic organizer

From building creative writing activities and implementing them, I now realize that students think they will sit and write. Ta-da!  After all, this isn’t academic writing. Coaching creative writing students is part of the process.

Young writers must accept that a first draft is simply that, a first draft. Building a project requires thought and mistakes. (Any writing endeavor does, really.) Students hear ‘creative writing’ and they think… easy. Therefore, a first week lesson plan for creative writing should touch on what creativity is.

Really, creativity is everywhere. We complete a graphic organizer titled, “Where is Creativity?” Students brainstorm familiar areas that they may not realize have such pieces.

The ideas they compile stir all sorts of conversations:

• Restaurants
• Movie theaters
• Amusement parks

By completing this graphic organizer, we discuss how creativity surrounds us, how we can incorporate different pieces in our writing, and how different areas influence our processes.

Creative Writing Lesson, Days Four and Five: Creative Nonfiction

Students need practice writing, and they need to understand that they will not use every word they write. Cutting out lines is painful for them! Often, a lesson plan for creative writing involves providing time for meaningful writing.

For two days, we study and discuss creative nonfiction. Students start by reading an overview of creative nonfiction . (If you need mentor texts, that website has some as well.) When I have books available, I show the class examples of creative nonfiction.

We then continue through elements of a narrative . Classes are sometimes surprised that a narrative can be nonfiction.

The narrative writing is our first large project. As we continue, students are responsible for smaller projects as well. This keeps them writing most days.

Overall, my students and I work together during the first week of any creative writing class. I encourage them to write, and I cheer on their progress. My message to classes is that their writing has value, and an audience exists for their creations.

And that is my week one! The quick recap:

Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Monday: Rules, procedures, TED Talk, discussion.

Tuesday: Prior knowledge—brainstorm the modeling of memorable stories. Draw conclusions about storytelling with anchor charts. Build community through common knowledge.

Wednesday: Graphic organizer.

Thursday and Friday: Creative nonfiction. Start narrative writing.

Students do well with this small assignment for the second week, and then we move to longer creative writing assignments . When classesexperience success with their first assignment, you can start constructive editing and revising with them as the class continues.

These creative writing activities should be easy implement and personalize for your students.

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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that  every  student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a  seven-step method  that will  scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process  from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

• personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
• imaginative scenarios
• prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
• lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
• fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

• What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
• What might make us question those beliefs?
• What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
• How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

• allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
• help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
• warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting  is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note:  at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

• a work in progress.

Remind them that  if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

• demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
• taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
• providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs also gives you access to an ever-expanding collection of over 3,500 online books!

2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

• use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

• Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
• Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
• Which parts am I most uncertain about?
• Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
• Are there places where I could have used a better word?
• Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to  read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note:  if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun  marking  your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on  how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for  supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

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The Inspired Teaching Approach

5 closing activities to give you feedback on your lesson.

Check out more Inspired2Learn activities like this one in the Inspired Teaching “21 Ways to End the School Day” Guidebook .

Discipline: These activities can be applied in any class or subject area.

Age level: All

Time: 5-15 minutes (or longer if you build out some of the activities more) 

While a summative assessment may be the ultimate way we know whether our teaching led to learning, we benefit from formative assessments all along the way to help us change course if things just aren’t sinking in. There are lots of ways to gauge how well a lesson went in just the last few minutes of class and these forms of feedback can sometimes even be fun. 

Reflective Beach Ball

This activity can be used in lots of different ways and it adds a little movement (tossing and catching a ball) to the close of class. You begin with an inflatable beach ball – preferably the kind that has different colored segments. Using a wet-erase marker (this makes it possible to erase and reuse the ball for future applications but dry-erase maker will rub off when you toss the ball around) write different questions or prompts in each segment of the ball. 

Assemble students in a circle and toss the ball to one of them. They answer the prompt/question that is under their right pointer finger (or some such designation) and then toss the ball to another student until everyone in the room has had a turn. 

What you write on the ball depends on your goal. If, for example, you want feedback on your lesson, you might write things like: 

• What worked well for you in today’s class? 
• What could we have done differently to make today’s class better for you? 
• What are you wondering about after today’s lesson? 
• What did you find difficult about today’s lesson? 
• What’s something from today’s lesson that you want to remember? 
• What’s something from today’s lesson that you would like to go over again in our next class?

If you wanted to use this activity to check for understanding of a concept you taught, your questions could be content-specific. For example, in a lesson about parts of speech you could do the following: 

• Point to a proper noun and say it out loud. 
• Show us an action verb and tell us what you’re doing. 
• Place the ball somewhere in the room and use a sentence with a preposition that explains where you put it. 
• Use an adverb to describe the ball in motion. 
• Use adjectives to explain how the ball feels in your hands. 
• Share your pronouns. 

If you wanted to use this activity to build community, your questions might sound like this: 

• What’s the last book you read? 
• What’s something you like to eat? 
• Are you a night owl or an early riser? 
• What’s one of your pet peeves?  
• What makes you laugh? 
• What song are you enjoying right now? 

There are endless variations to the reflective beach ball – it just offers a different way of asking questions, providing a little spontaneity to the process, and rather than you being the director of the questions, students “pass” the inquiries to one another.

3-2-1 Feedback

Like the beach ball activity, this one can be molded to a wide variety of purposes. This is essentially an “ exit ticket ” that you’d have students write and give to you as they leave the room, but what makes it interesting is how this structure organizes their reflection. 

The frame for the prompt looks like this: 

• 3 things you learned in class today
• 2 things you want to learn more about based on what you learned
• 1 question you have about today’s lesson

But you can tweak the prompts in different ways depending on your goal. For example, if you wanted to get a sense of how a class discussion went you might change the prompts as follows: 

• 3 things your classmates said that stand out for you
• 2 things you contributed to the discussion
• 1 thing you wish you had said

If you wanted to check for understanding in a science lesson you could ask content-specific questions following the 3-2-1 format such as: 

• 3 facts about atoms
• 2 things that still confuse you about atoms
• 1 reason why knowing about atoms matters in your life

You can even use this format to get a sense of how your classroom community is coming along with questions like: 

• 3 ways your classmates are helping you to learn
• 2 things we could do to improve our classroom community
• 1 thing you would like to do more in this class

It is important to explain to students what you will do with these 3-2-1 reflections. In some instances, you may use them as part of students’ grades, but there is still value to them doing the work without a grade if you show them that you use what they have written for some other purpose. Here are some things you can do with these 3-2-1 reflections that don’t require grading or even providing written feedback:

• Read them over and create a summary of the main things you learned from the insights that you share verbally with the class the next time you meet. 
• Pull out 1 or 2 statements from the collection to share aloud in the next class as examples of some of the insights you gleaned. 
• If you do these regularly, consider having students keep them in a notebook for their own reflection. Explain to them how this kind of reflective writing after a lesson is good for memory retention.

Share One Word

If you have just 3 minutes left before the bell, simply asking students to share one word that represents their learning and inviting responses from around the class can give you a really good picture of what stuck out. Consider making this invitation in two parts so the answers are more original and less inspired by what a previous student has said.

Your directions might sound like this. “Take a minute to write down one word that best describes what you’re taking away from today’s lesson. Thumbs up if you have your word. [Wait until all thumbs are up.] Everyone has their word, now we’re going to start with the person closest to the door sharing just your one word until we all have shared.”

Take note of the words students share and where you see a lot of overlap. You’ll want to listen not only for overall trends but also pay attention to what individuals are saying and what that can teach you about their particular ways of learning. 

Word-At-A-Time Poems

Similar to the activity above, Word-At-A-Time Poems invite students to share their insights in just one word at time. But unlike “Share One Word” the words that each student speaks are recorded into a poem and then read back to the class. For this reason, you’ll want to do this activity when you have more than 5 minutes before the bell. Here is the process: 

• Say to the class, “We’re going to create a poem together that sums up what we learned today. But each of you will contribute at least one word to that poem. Take a moment to jot down a few words that best describe your learning today. [Give about a minute for them to write.] Now we’ll start with [name]. Please share one word from your list that describes what you learned today. I will be writing your words down so please speak them clearly.”
• As students share their words, take notes so you have them all down on paper. Do not hesitate to go slower or ask students to repeat themselves so you are sure to have all their words. 
• After the poem comes to a natural close read back the “poem” in the order of the words they shared. This is a beautiful way to showcase students as experts as you put their own words front and center. Consider sharing the finished poem with families as a summary of the day’s learning! 

More Creative Ways to Gather Insights at the End of Class Often times the classic “exit ticket” at the end of class is just a waste of paper and time. Teachers don’t have enough time to grade all the full assignments students do so taking time to read through lots of little slips of paper is often more struggle than it’s worth. But some sort of closing reflection or quick formative assessment at the end of class can be very instrumental in letting you know if your students got the lesson or they didn’t. This source from Ditch That Textbook offers several technology-based strategies from polls to Padlets that can give you a quick snapshot of learning without taking too much time on your part or that of your students.

Standards Addressed by these Activities

Common core college and career readiness anchor standards for language.

Conventions of Standard English:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.6 Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing

Text Types and Purposes:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening

Comprehension and Collaboration:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Competencies

Self-Awareness: The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one’s strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose.

Self-management: The abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. This includes the capacities to delay gratification, manage stress, and feel motivation and agency to accomplish personal and collective goals.

Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.

Responsible decision-making: The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the capacities to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and collective well-being.

Relationship skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. This includes the capacities to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate, work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively, navigate settings with differing social and cultural demands and opportunities, provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed.

Elizabeth Cutler

Grants manager.

As Grants Manager, Elizabeth manages Inspired Teaching’s grant requirements and writes proposals and other fundraising materials. She is a writer, creative producer, and longtime improv performer and teacher. 

Elizabeth has an MA in Democracy & Governance from Georgetown University and BA in Politics from Occidental College. She previously served on the boards of nonprofits Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and the District Improv Festival.

What brings you joy in life?

Creativity! Pushing through a challenging writing process or learning a new improv format often feels frustrating at the moment, but the satisfaction of reaching the other side brings me such joy. I also love seeing a variety of live theater and performances and nerding out about books. 

Dr. Michelle Edwards

Director; founder & ceo, the idari collective.

Dr. Edwards is the Founder and CEO of the Idari Collective. Idari means leadership in the Yoruba language. The Idari Collective is a coaching, mentoring, and consulting firm whose mission is to come alongside leaders, especially Black women leaders, so that they will thrive in leading their personal and professional lives. 

She is a native Chicagoan and a career educator who found her way to the East Coast as a resident principal in New Leaders, Inc. during its inaugural year in Washington DC. She also served as a principal in Anacostia at Orr Elementary for almost a decade. Michelle returned to New Leaders in 2013 as the Director of the Emerging Leaders Program. Dr. Edwards served for nearly seven years as the Executive Director at Live It Learn It, an experiential learning nonprofit located in Washington, DC that partners with schools and cultural institutions to create and deliver experiential learning opportunities for Black and Brown elementary-aged students. 

She earned a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and received a Certificate in Executive Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University. Michelle is a graduate of Creative Results Management, where she was trained to coach. Dr. Edwards also advocates for social justice and racial reconciliation as a leader of the DC Unity and Justice Fellowship, a new 501c3 in Washington, DC where she serves as the inaugural Board Chair. She is a trained Urban Missionary, a proud, 25+ year-member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the mother of two adult sons, Darren and Dante.

Meag Campos

Project manager.

Micaiah Anderson

Community outreach specialist.

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University. 

" I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Speak truth faculty.

As Speak Truth Faculty, Brady helps to lead one of our model youth programs. She provides training and support to high school students as they lead and engage in Speak Truth discussions on issues important in their lives. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read. 

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn , and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate , comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning. 

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate  Cycle is t he work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate . This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and learning specialist.

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & marketing specialist.

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity. 

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real world history assistant teacher.

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability 

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.

Time: half day Appropriate for: all educators at all grade levels

Sign up to learn more!

Email Address

Rethinking How We Spend Time 

The teaching profession is already rife with time-consuming activities that don’t always benefit our students. Navigating the challenges of online, hybrid, or socially distanced learning means we have to be even more thoughtful about where and how we spend our time. In this workshop participants explore ways to make their work more efficient and the precious time they have with students more productive, and even enjoyable.

Centering Students and Checking Bias

Our assumptions about students often get in the way of meeting their needs. This is especially true when we don’t have the same opportunities to get to know them in person. What messages are we unintentionally conveying through our email or video communications with students and their families? What steps can we take to make online learning equitable and respectful for all our students? This workshop offers participants a framework for decision-making as they plan for the new school year, an opportunity to critically examine their practice, and concrete strategies for elevating student voice and engaging productively with students.

Setting Goals and Creating Structure Online

Can we have the same goals in online learning that we do in the physical classroom? Yes!...And, online learning offers different means of achieving them. Participants will evaluate specific goals in their curriculum and explore ways to structure their time with students to efficiently maximize impact. 

Building Community in Uncertain Times

One of the big concerns teachers have about the upcoming school year is how they’ll get to know their students if their only encounters are through a computer screen or in-person but socially distanced. In this hands-on workshop participants will learn and practice strategies for community building online and/or in modified classrooms and craft a plan for learning all about their students in the first weeks of school. 

Jenna Fournel

Director of teaching and learning.

Jenna Fournel has been involved with Center for Inspired Teaching since 2004 and has worked in the education field for more than 20 years. She began her career as a high school English teacher and has served as Director of Communications for both Inspired Teaching and the National Council of Teachers of English. Her overarching professional goal is to do what she can to make the world a kinder place. She believes investing in the education of our young people is the best place to start.

Bella Cavicchi

Teaching and learning coordinator.

As the Teaching and Learning Coordinator, Bella manages Inspired Teaching’s digital presence and supports the organization’s efforts to reach new communities of educators and students. She believes passionately in honoring the voices of young people, and in and outside of the classroom, she strives to create inclusive spaces where students’ curiosity can thrive. She holds a B.A. in Literacy and the Performing Arts from Brown University and an MPhil in Arts, Creativity, and Education from the University of Cambridge. Currently, she lives and works as a drama teacher in London, where she is inspired daily by her students' creativity!

Chair; CFO, Options Solutions

John Nolan is a finance executive with over 30 years of of experience at organizations of various sizes. He has served in “C” level positions at public, private equity and private companies in the SaaS, Management Consulting, Telecommunications and Computer Hardware industries. He has deep experience in implementing and improving controls and other financial processes across organizations.

He is currently the CFO and CCO of Options Solutions, LLC, an investment advisory firm. Formerly, served as the CFO of Determine Inc., an international provider of contract management and procurement software. Prior to that, John spent a decade as CFO and then CEO of Quadel Consulting, a provider of services to low income housing programs. John’s other professional experience includes 3 years at IBM and 15 years at MCI, where he ran Corporate Finance for the Fortune 100 company.

He holds an undergraduate degree from Tulane University, an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a licensed CPA. John’s work with non-profits has primarily focused on educational organizations. He served for five years as the Treasurer of the Blessed Sacrament School board in DC. For three years he was on the board of Imagination Stage (IS) of Bethesda, a youth focused arts and education organization. John also served for six years on the corporate advisory board of So Other Might Eat (SOME), the DC based poverty services organization that is greatly expanding its job training programs.

Mr. Nolan has spoken on financial leadership and cost analysis at Chief Financial Officer Magazine, Better Management Live and IDC conferences. The costing systems he put in place at MCI received the Enterprise Intelligence award from the software company SAS.

Want to bring Inspired Teaching to your team or school?

Access school or district professional learning funds:  Some districts have professional learning discretionary funding for schools, or other funds that can be accessed for this purpose. Principals, district supervisors, curriculum supervisors, professional learning directors, and superintendents are good people to check with.  Depending on how many colleagues at your school participate, and the subject of the course, you may be able to access school improvement funds as well (e.g., for a course in Relationship-Based Classrooms, which would address school climate).

Talk to your PTA  representatives. These groups often have grants and money set aside for professional learning and school improvement.

Donors Choose is an organization where educators can post projects for donors to browse and fun, including professional learning that is used to further your craft.  Go to their website  to create a free account and find out more. Remember to post your project to social media, so that your friends and family can see the work you're doing and share it with others!

The  NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education   awards grants that support the professional learning of public school teachers and faculty in public institutions of higher education. Grants may fund professional learning experiences, such as summer institutes or action research, mentoring experiences or lesson study. Professional learning must improve practice, curriculum and student achievement, and recipients must put professional leadership into practice by sharing what they learn with their colleagues. For specific information, visit the NEA Foundation’s  application instructions  page.

Fund for Teachers   is unique in that it awards grants for professional learning based on the principle that the teacher is the one who knows what they need to grow as an educator. These grants are self designed and allow teachers to create their own professional learning opportunity based on what is most beneficial to their teaching in their own opinions. The  application  encourages educators to think about their objectives, motivations and the impact their particular plan of action will have on students. Applications are due in January.

The McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation provides  Teacher Development Grants  for individual teachers or small teams working in K-12 education. To foster insightful and innovative professional learning and growth, the grants allow you to implement new teaching methods and strategies in the classroom. Projects can take a variety of forms, but each of them must be geared towards having a significant and lasting impact in the classroom. Winners work closely with the foundation to implement their ideas and are awarded up to $10,000 for the first three years of the project.

Earn PLU hours while taking a workshop!

Washington, D.C. educators can receive PLU hours for participating in courses. Each day of a course is 6 hours of credit - we will provide a certificate upon completion of the course. Please see the  OSSE certification website  for more information.

Inspired Teaching Course Costs

A taste of inspired teaching, time & location, about the event.

Christine Sheridan

Program grant manager.

Nothing brings me joy in life like spending time with family and friends. I love being active and spending time outdoors, making stained glass, and trying new foods!

Creative Writing was forced onto my schedule; I didn’t ask for it. But it ended up becoming my favorite class period of the day. While academic English courses can feel high-stakes and always short on time, Creative Writing can be a refreshingly relaxed elective class. In many districts with loose curriculums, Creative Writing is what you make of it. In this post, I outline six steps to show you how to teach creative writing to high school students.

Why Teach Creative Writing

Before we get into the how , let’s first address the why . Why bother teaching Creative Writing in the first place? Students’ basic skills are lower than ever; is now really the time to encourage them to break the rules?

If you want to get really deep into why you should teach Creative Writing, I have a whole post about it here.

But think about why you love reading. Is it because you were made to annotate or close read a bunch of classic novels? Probably not. You probably fell in love with reading while you were reading something that was fun. And because it was fun, you read more, and your skills as a reader grew.

The same principle applies to writing. If we can make it fun for our students, perhaps we can foster a love for it. And passion is what leads, eventually, to mastery.

Giving our students the opportunity to fall in love with writing is a gift that might help them grow in their academic writing later.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #1: Decide on Your Standards or Goals

Your school or district may have a mandated syllabus or curriculum. Mine did not. 

Whether you’re given student goals or have to create them, you must have an overall vision for what your Creative Writing class will accomplish. 

Is this a laid-back, engaging course designed to help students discover the fun in writing? Or is it a supplement to rigorous academics for college-bound high school students? 

If you know your school’s student population well, I encourage you to think about their needs. Some students just need to write more–more of anything, but lots more. Some students are high achieving and ready to write their first novels! If possible, design your course around the needs and interests of the general student population in your school or district. 

Regardless of how rigorous your Creative Writing course will be, deciding on these goals first will help you in backwards planning. 

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #2: Choose Your Final Assessments and Big Projects

Before we can start planning our lessons, we have to decide what skills or knowledge our students will need. And to know what they need, we have to decide on their summative assessments.

Will your final assessment be a short story? A collection of poetry? Are you required to offer a final exam?

Once you know what students will need to do, you can make a list of the skill they’ll need. This list will become a list of lessons you’ll need to teach.

Fairy Tale Retelling Project

My Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great Creative Writing assessment. For this project, students had to first choose a fairy tale. Then, they rewrote the story from the perspective of the villain.

This project works really well because students have structure. They can pick any fairy tale they want, but they can’t write about just anything.

Secondly, students already know the story, so they don’t have to worry about a beginning, middle, and end. The open-endedness of writing a story completely from scratch has paralyzed my students before. Structure allows students lots of creative freedom without the excuse of “I don’t know what to write.”

Author Study Project

If you’d like your Creative Writing class to help beginner writers have fun and just get some practice with fiction writing, a Fairy Tale Retelling Project would probably be perfect for your class.

Another project I’ve done with my students is an Author Study . In this project, students choose one author to study in-depth. Then, they attempt to replicate that author’s style in an original work.

If you’d like your class to also include lots of exposure to other writers or classic literature, then this might be a great assessment for your class.

Learn more about doing an author study in this step-by-step post.

Test or Final Exam

I also gave my students a final exam focused on literary terms.

This Literary Terms Test allowed me to test students on the academic knowledge they gained throughout class instead of their writing ability. This test also helped me fulfill my district’s requirement of having a final exam at the end of each course.

Once you’ve decided on your class’s major projects and assessments, you can begin designing the rest of your class.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #3: Backwards Plan

Now that you know what your students will need to do at the end of this class, you can list out everything you need to teach them in order for them to be successful.

For example, if you opt for an author study as a final project, you know what you will need to cover. You will need to teach students some literary terms so that they can describe an author’s style. You’ll need to show them how to analyze a poem.

During the course of your class, you’ll also want to expose students to a variety of authors and mentor texts. Students will need to practice basic writing techniques in order to replicate those of their chosen authors.

If you need some inspiration for what kinds of lessons to teach, check out this post on essential Creative Writing lessons.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #4: Decide on Your Class Structure

Once you’ve decided on the end goals for your Creative Writing class, you can use them to help create day-to-day plans. 

What will your class look like? Will it be full of lots of quiet and independent work time? Will it be full of frenetic energy with students working in collaborative groups? Are students writing in notebooks or on laptops?

Of course, a successful class will most likely include a mixture of all of the above. But it’s up to you to decide on your ratio. 

Again, I encourage you to think about your school’s population. If you’re on ninety-minute blocks, is it realistic for students to be quietly writing that whole time? If you have high-achieving students, might they benefit from working independently at home and then getting and giving peer feedback during class time?

Use your goals to help decide on a general class structure. 

Warm-ups for Creative Writing

You’ll need a consistent way to begin each class.

When I initially began teaching Creative Writing, I just wanted to provide my students with more time to write. We began every class period with free writing. I gave students a couple of prompts to choose from each day, and then we’d write for about ten minutes. 

( Those journal prompts are right here . Every day includes two prompts plus a third option of freewriting.)

Students were given the option to share part of their writing if they wanted to. Every couple of weeks I’d flip through their notebooks to make sure they were keeping up, but I only read the entries they starred for me in advance. 

Later, I wanted to add some rigor to my Creative Writing class and leverage more mentor texts. I created a Poem of the Week activity for each week of the course. 

This gave students the opportunity to study professional writing before using it as a mentor text for a new, original piece. 

(You can read more about using these Poem of the Week activities here.) 

As my goals for the class and my students change, so did the way we began class. 

How can you begin your class in a way that supports the end goals or teaches the desired standards? How often will peers work together?

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #5: Focus on Engagement Strategies

Now you can actually start planning lessons and projects!

But as you do so, focus on creating engaging ones–especially if your class is meant to be a fun elective.

Need more tips? Check out this post full of Creative Writing teaching tips!

Use Mentor Texts and Lots of Examples

Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together without knowing what the image was going to look like? It would be pretty difficult! Similarly, students need lots of examples of strong writing to aspire to. 

Without clear models or mentor texts , students will happily turn in unread drafts. They’ll choose the first word that comes to their mind instead of searching for a better one. 

But if you surround students with great writing, highlight strong technique when discussing the writing of others, and challenge them to notice the details in their own writing, they’ll naturally become better at self-editing.

I don’t believe that you can provide students with too many mentor texts or examples of strong writing. As you teach Creative Writing, keep or take pictures of strong writing samples from students to use as examples later. 

Nearly all of my lessons and projects include an example along with instruction.

Model and Create with Your Students

You can even use your own writing as an example. When I had students free write to creative writing prompts, I always wrote with them. Sometimes I would then put my notebook under the document camera and model reading my own work.  

I would cross out words and replace them or underline phrases I thought were strong enough to keep. Model for students not just great writing, but the process of strengthening writing.

And then give them plenty of time to edit theirs. This is when having students engage in peer feedback is a game-changer. 

Without great writing to aspire to, however, students easily become lazy and turn in work that is “good enough” in their eyes. Don’t let them get lazy in their writing. Keep throwing greater and greater work in front of them and challenge them to push themselves. 

(This is another reason I love using Poem of the Week warm-ups –they expose students to a new writer every week!)

Set Clear Expectations

Creative writing causes a lot of students anxiety. There’s no “right” answer, so how will they know if they creatively wrote “correctly?”

Help them out by setting clear expectations. Offering a rubric for every project is great for this. If you can, give them specifics to include. “At least 500 words” or “three or more similes” are nice, concrete guidelines that students can follow.

Give Students Choice

Offering students choice always boosts engagement. It lets students take charge of their learning and pursue something that interests them.

For example, when I teach odes , students are given the opportunity to write about something they love.

With an author study , students can study a writer whose style and work they admire.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #6: Use Clear and Structured Expectations

While showing students excellent prose or perfect poetry should help inspire students, your writers will still need some hard parameters to follow. 

Academic writing is often easier for students than creative writing. Usually, academic writing follows a structure or certain formula. The rubric dictates exactly how many quotes need to be included or how long an essay needs to be. MLA or APA formats tell students how to punctuate quotes and citations. 

These rules don’t apply to creative writing. And while that’s exactly what makes creative writing awesome, it’s often overwhelming. 

So do your students a favor and give them some clear expectations (without, of course, entirely dictating what they need to write about).  

The project also includes a rubric, so young writers know what should be included in their stories.

Don’t give your students so much creative freedom that it paralyzes them! Your writers are still students; give them the same level of structure and organization that you would in any other class. 

Engage your students in more creative writing!

Sign up and get five FREE Creative Writing journal prompts to use with your students! 

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Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #7: Give Students Choices

So how do you give students frameworks, requirements, and uphold high expectations without stifling their creativity?

Give students choices. You can write about A, B, or C, as long as you meet requirements 1, 2, and 3. 

Offering choices works with small one-day assignments or lessons as well as bigger, longer-term projects. 

The previously mentioned Fairy Tale Retelling Project is a great example of offering a narrow selection of choices that uphold expectations without dictating what students write. 

Another one of my favorite examples of offering students choices is my “Show. Don’t Tell” Mini-lesson . This lesson touches on everything students need to successfully learn creative writing. 

First I teach them the concept of showing vs. telling in writing through direct instruction. I show them lots of examples of expanding a “telling sentence” into a “showing paragraph.”

Then I model for students how I would write a paragraph that shows crucial information, rather than telling it. 

Lastly, I have students pick a strip of paper from a hat or a bag. Each strip of paper contains a “telling sentence” that they must then write as a “showing paragraph.” Students are limited by the sentences I provide, but they still have complete freedom over how they achieve that detailed paragraph. 

If you wanted to give students even more freedom, you could let them pick their sentences or trade with a peer rather than blindly choosing. 

Any time you can give students a choice, you give them permission to use their creativity and allow them to take some of the initiative in their own learning.

Teach Creative Writing to High School Students Step #8: Encourage Peer Collaboration and Feedback

We can tell students something a hundred times, but they won’t listen until a peer says the same thing. Us educators know the value of positive peer interaction, so don’t limit it in a creative writing class!

There are a ton of ways to implement peer interaction in a creative writing class. I often do this on the first day of class with a writing game. You’ve probably heard of it: everyone writes a sentence on a piece of paper, then everyone passes the paper and adds a sentence, and so on. 

I highly encourage you to use peer feedback throughout the class. I usually start having students share their work from day one with my free “I Am” Poem Lesson so that they can start getting used to having their work read by others immediately.

Make getting feedback so routine in your room that students don’t even question it.

It’s really tempting to let students get away without sharing their work. We don’t want to make shy or anxious students uncomfortable. I mean, what better way to completely ruin creative writing for a student than to make them feel embarrassed all the time, right?

But keep trying to encourage shy students to share. Even if that means you share it anonymously or read it aloud for them. 

I recommend including some kind of peer feedback with every writing assignment . Yes, even short practice assignments. This will work as a kind of “immersion therapy” for receiving feedback on more involved work.

After some time, you might find that your students even begin to share their work without your prompting! 

I like to organize the desks in my Creative Writing class so that students are in little groups. I’ve found that at least half of my classes will begin talking and sharing with one another in their little groups while working on projects. 

They’ll ask each other questions or to remind them of a word. They’ll read sentences aloud and ask if they sound right. Personally, I would much rather hear this kind of chatter in my class than have a dead silent room of boring writers!

However you decide to allow students to work together, be sure to provide the opportunity. Reading and getting feedback from peers could possibly teach students more about writing than any of your instruction (sorry!).

One of the truly great things about teaching creative writing to high school students is that there often isn’t a rigid curriculum. Of course, this is also sometimes one of the worst things about teaching creative writing to high school students!

You have total freedom over the assignments you give, the standards you teach, and how you organize and structure your classroom. After a few years of teaching Creative Writing, however, I’ve found that sticking to these six steps is a great way to have a successful semester.

If you’re excited about teaching your Creative Writing class, but are running low on prep time, check out my complete 9-week Creative Writing course ! Included are two different types of warm-ups, poetry analysis activities from well-known authors, mini-lesson, projects, and more!

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5 Fun Creative Writing Activities

We’ve gathered five fun creative writing activities you can assign to spark a love for writing. Our hope is that these activities will create a workshop-like environment that fosters feedback and collaboration in your writing classroom.

You’ll notice that none of the activities focuses on the technical aspects of writing. Instead, the activities encourage creativity, reflection, and self-expression—hallmarks of meaningful writing.

Minilesson 1: InstaMemory

• Imagine a favorite memory as a cellphone picture.
• Finish this sentence starter: My memory snapshot shows . . .
• Keep writing until you’ve described your memory snapshot in full. Make sure to include who is in it, what is happening, where it is happening, and when it is happening. Note colors, emotions, facial expressions, and other visual details about the moment.
• Read your memory snapshot. Does your writing create a clear picture?

View Minilesson for Classroom Presentation

Minilesson 2: Back-and-Forth Stories

Writing back-and-forth stories takes a little creativity and a lot of flexibility. How long can you and a partner keep this story going?

An abandoned home sat at the top of the hill. Matt and Brianna knew the rumors about it, but they had to see it for themselves. They tiptoed their way up the steps, and when they reached the door, it swung open. Inside . . .

• Continue the story. Write for two minutes.
• Pass the story to a writing partner.
• The partner continues the story where you left off and writes for two minutes before passing the story back.
• Continue writing and passing the story every two minutes.
• How long can you keep the story going? What happens inside the house?

Minilesson 3: Four-Star Food Review

• List the food items that would make up your ideal fall meal. Include one main dish, one side dish, one dessert, and one drink.
• Describe the looks, smells, and tastes associated with the meal.
• Finish this sentence: My meal reminds me of fall, because . . .
• Use the details you’ve collected to write a review of your meal in one or two paragraphs. Exchange your review with a partner to see how your meals compare.

Minilesson 4: Now how do I get out of this one?

• List ten chores or tasks you hate doing. Cleaning my room is an example of a chore you might not like.
• Select four tasks from your list and write a creative excuse explaining why you can’t or haven’t completed each one. Make your excuses as original and wild as possible.
• When you’ve finished, exchange your work with a classmate. Read and discuss each other’s excuses.

Minilesson 5: Diary of a Famous Figure

• List three famous people or characters you like or admire.
• Imagine you are one of the famous figures from your list.
• As that person, think of what you would do on a summer day.
• Write a diary entry (or blog post) about your special day as the famous person.
• Then write additional entries as you so choose.

Want more creative writing ideas? Check out these creative activities.

Teacher Support:

Click to find out more about this resource.

Standards Correlations:

The State Standards provide a way to evaluate your students' performance.

• 110.5.b.12.A
• LAFS.3.W.1.3
• 110.5.b.11.B.i
• 110.5.b.11.B.ii
• 110.6.b.11.B
• 110.6.b.12.A
• LAFS.4.W.1.3
• 110.6.b.11.B.i
• 110.6.b.11.B.ii
• 110.7.b.12.A
• LAFS.5.W.1.3
• 110.7.b.11.B.i
• 110.7.b.11.B.ii
• 110.22.b.10
• 110.22.b.11.A
• LAFS.6.W.1.3
• 110.22.b.10.A
• 110.22.b.10.B.i
• 110.23.b.10
• 110.23.b.11.A
• LAFS.7.W.1.3
• 110.23.b.10.B.i
• 110.23.b.10.B.ii
• 110.24.b.10
• 110.24.b.11.A
• LAFS.8.W.1.3
• 110.24.b.10.B.i
• 110.24.b.10.B.ii

Related Resources

All resources.

• Drawing a Life Map
• Writing: Now how do I get out of this one?
• Writing a 5 W’s Story
• Writing Back-and-Forth Stories
• Starting Stories: 5 Great Beginning Strategies
• Writing Résumés and Cover Letters
• Practice Test for Reading and Writing Nonfiction
• Writing Narrative Arguments
• Writing Personal Essays
• Inquire Online Middle School Classroom Set
• Write Away Teacher's Guide
• Write for College Teacher's Guide
• Write for College
• Writers Express

10 Essential Lessons You’ll Learn in a Creative Writing Workshop

by Melissa Donovan | Jul 11, 2023 | Creative Writing | 9 comments

What can you learn in a creative writing workshop?

When I look back over all my years of formal education, from preschool through college, only a few classes stand out as truly educational in a life-changing way.

In sixth grade, we did a section on space, which fascinated me. I retained a lot of what I learned. Later, I took astronomy and learned even more about the universe. A class on women writers exposed me to a whole world of literature I didn’t know existed. And two writing workshops (poetry and creative writing) put me on the path to becoming a professional writer.

The main difference between a regular class and a workshop is that a workshop is interactive. You work together with your fellow students, critiquing each other’s work, asking questions, and exchanging insights. Whatever you can learn from a single instructor is multiplied by all the knowledge and wisdom you gain by sharing ideas with a roomful of your peers.

What You Can Learn from a Creative Writing Workshop

I only took one creative writing workshop, and I’m sure they are not all equal. At an accredited school, you can usually sit in on the first couple of sessions to see if a class or workshop is right for you before you commit. If you find a good workshop, you’ll reap the benefits:

1. Discover yourself and your path. One day, while sitting in creative writing workshop, I was overcome by the strangest sensation. The best way I can describe it is that I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was the moment I knew without a doubt that I would be a writer.

2. Find out what your writing strengths are. The best part about receiving critiques from your peers is that they tell you what you’re doing right, which is reassuring. When you know that your writing skills have a solid foundation, it’s easier to accept that you still have work to do.

3. Accept the weaknesses in your writing. No matter how good your writing is now, there are things you can do to improve it. When ten of your classmates agree that certain elements in your prose need touching up or that you need to hit the grammar books, all you can do is accept it and dig your heels in.

4. Learn to handle critiques of your work. The first few critiques might be a bit rough, but once you see how all the suggestions make your writing better, you’ll start looking forward to them. You’ll learn how to separate yourself from your work, and you’ll be able to not only handle but actually embrace (and look forward to) critiques. This will also prepare you for real-world critics and their reviews.

5. Help others improve their work. When other writers put your suggestions into action or express appreciation for your recommendations and then tell you that your feedback helped them improve their writing, it feels good, especially when the arrangement is reciprocal.

6. Meet people who share your passion. There’s nothing like sitting in a room surrounded by people who are just as excited about writing as you are. It’s not only inspiring, it’s comforting. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to meet like-minded people, some of whom may become lifelong friends, writing partners, or your future writing group.

7. Improve your writing. This, of course, is the main reason most people take a creative writing workshop. The ultimate goal is to become a better writer , and a workshop will definitely do the trick. You’ll also put a lot more effort into everything you write because you know it will be scrutinized, and this builds excellent writing habits .

8. Adopt new writing techniques. Between the instructor and your peers, you’ll discover all kinds of interesting new writing tools and techniques, often simply through the course of discussion as well as through observing everyone’s work.

9. Get access to a mentor. The person running the workshop should be knowledgeable and experienced in the world of writing. Maybe the instructor is a published author, or maybe it’s someone who’s worked as an agent, editor, or publisher. This access to a mentor is priceless. Take advantage of it!

10. Gain experience and get a lot of creative writing practice. This is one of the most valuable benefits of a creative writing workshop. When writers work on their own, they tend to procrastinate, get distracted, and generally don’t finish most of the projects they start. But in a workshop, you’re forced to get it done. This gives you lots of great experience and practice, and it also builds good writing habits.

Thinking About Taking a Creative Writing Workshop?

I definitely recommend taking a creative writing workshop if you can find a good one that suits your schedule, budget, and writing needs. If you’ve already taken a creative writing workshop or class, share your experiences by leaving a comment. Did you learn or gain anything? Would you do it again?

You have spoken along these lines before, Melissa, and this entry is, as all your posts, fascinating and carries a great deal of sense. However, and I know I am repeating myself, I am quite unable to allow others to trample over my work, however poor it is and however noble their (expressed) motives.

I cannot help but think of the vast number of ‘real’ writers, men and women who would not have entertained the thought that writing could be learned, like arithmetic, in a classroom.

I am a poor writer and have come to accept the fact I shall always be a poor writer; it is my belief that some things – like arithmetic – can be ‘brought to heel’ by sheer hatd work, while others, like music, painting and writing, will remain ever beyond the reach of some.

Further, I have seen very promising young tennis players taken up by organisations such as the LTA and coached, every shred of flair and originality brutally ‘ironed out’ of them, and my fear is that, for many of us, attending a writer’s workshop would be a similarly dulling experience.

I also realise, however, that there are those of a temperament to survive – and evn thrive in such conditions. Sadly, I am not one of them.

Again, my thanks for a fascinating and informative blog and may it go on to even greater success, but I think you should make it clear that not everyone who has pretensions of being a writer will see their dream come true.

I believe anyone can become a writer. It starts with believing in yourself. I would add that successful authors demonstrate a range of writing skills. Even a “poor writer” (which you are not) can eke out a career in writing. I’ve seen it done. The only way to be sure you will never succeed is to never try.

Writing can be intended for a wide audience but it’s reason for being is that the writer cannot bear not to write. Whether you are a Eudora Welty, basking in prayers se or an Ethel Jackson whose writing fills notebooks only she has seen, your work has much value

Our local university has leisure learning classes that are workshops. We not only get feedback on our work, but we also learn how to workshop a piece, looking parts of the writing process with a discerning eye. The instructors keep the focus on the work, not the author. It’s so helpful for all the reasons you mentioned, but also to learn how to look constructively at my own work before anyone else ever reads it. Being inspired by fellow writers talking about writing is my favorite part. I’m sorry that opsimath feels that way. Whose to say what’s poor writing or good writing? Of course, some is obvious, and the above comment isn’t bad writing. I found it to be well-crafted and conveyed what the author intended. Not everybody is Stephen King or F.Scott Fitzgerald, and there are some who would argue even they aren’t good writers. I had the fear that I would lose myself in critique, but even in that it’s a good exercise. One of my best lessons is that no matter what others said, it’s still my writing. I can choose to take their advice or not. Workshops are only helpful when the focus is on the work, though. It’s a criitique, not a criticism. I’ve been in bad ones and they can hurt more than help. I got out of them quick.

Yes! Everything you said is spot-on. Your experiences in workshop give all of us reason to feel optimistic about finding good writing workshops and the benefits that we’ll gain from them. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I hope it inspires others to take the plunge and try workshopping for themselves.

You have talked thusly some time recently, Melissa, and this section is, as every one of your posts, interesting and conveys a lot of sense. On the other hand, and I know I am rehashing myself, I am very not able to permit others to trample over my work, however poor it is and however honorable their (communicated) thought processes.

I really want to think about the incomprehensible number of “genuine” essayists, men and ladies who might not have entertained the prospect that written work could be learned, similar to math, in a classroom.

I am a poor essayist and now acknowledge the actuality I should dependably be a poor author; it is my conviction that a few things – like math – can be ‘conveyed to heel’ by sheer hatd work, while others, similar to music, painting and composing, will remain ever past the compass of some.

Further, I have seen extremely encouraging youthful tennis players taken up by associations, for example, the LTA and instructed, each shred of energy and innovation mercilessly ‘resolved’ of them, and my trepidation is that, for a significant number of us, going to an author’s workshop would be an also dulling knowle

Hi Shamit. Receiving feedback and critiques is not the same as people trampling all over your work. A good critique is designed to make your writing better. If you want to be a better writer, you can certainly work toward that. It’s your choice. There are people who have a natural talent for writing. However, great writing requires a lot of different skills (grammar, storytelling, word-craft, etc.). Even the most talented writers will find some area of the craft where they need to learn skills they don’t possess. The idea that writing can’t be learned is simply not true, as evidenced by thousands upon thousands of people who worked hard to learn the craft and then became successful. The myth that talent is a requirement is an unfortunate one.

A writer is someone who writes. However, the object of writing is not necessarily to get published or make a living by writing. Read, for example, the notebooks of Thomas Edison. One of the best writers I knew was my grandmother, who maintained weekly correspondence with seven high school girlfriends for over 50 years.

That’s true, Ann. People write for many reasons and not only for professional purposes.

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Giving Effective Feedback on Student Writing

Dive into the different aspects of giving feedback, from the stylistic and procedural components to what and how much to comment on in student writing.

Updated: January 2023

7 Strategies to Help Students Adopt a Growth Mindset in Your Writing Course

There are many things you can do—before the semester, early in the course, and throughout the course—to help students adopt a growth mindset in your writing course; here are 7 ideas.

Striking the Right Tone in Written Feedback

How can you get students to be more receptive to your feedback? The right tone can help.

Alternative Feedback Strategies for Greater Efficiency

Consider different techniques that can lead to students getting more and better feedback overall.

S2E17 - Providing Effective Feedback to Students

The School of Education and Human Development at UVA digs into their feedback process to reimagine how they engage faculty and students in the feedback cycle.

In this episode, Jenny Quarles is joined by Dr. Naomi Winstone, a published author and expert on feedback from the University of Surrey in the UK, and Joe Fore, a UVA faculty member within the School of Law.

A Guide to Giving Writing Feedback that Sticks

We turn our attention to a more substantive aspect of writing feedback: what and how much to comment on.

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Sample feedback lesson on creative writing

Subject: English

Age range: 11 - 16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

13 December 2018

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Giving Effective Feedback to Creative Writers

Your writing partner has asked for some feedback on her novel.  Now what?

The Three P’s: Purpose, Plan, and Process

The Three P's of providing feedback will help you provide feedback that your writing colleauges can actually use.

Know Your Purpose

Grounding yourself with the purpose of your feedback helps keep you productively focused. Clarity of purpose should be your starting point before you even start reading or listening to a written work. It will guide your attention and ensure you are more likely to help than harm your writing partner. In other words: Are you giving tough feedback to someone who can benefit from it or shattering a new writer’s confidence?  Are you there to help a new writer feel heard, or are you working with someone half-way down the path to develop their craft? Are you looking down in the weeds or at the big picture? Asking the writer what they want from you at the beginning of the feedback process is the best way to guide your efforts.

Make a Plan

Sitting down to provide feedback can mean different things to different people on different days. We are all busy and distracted, and having a targeted agenda can make sure we stick to our goals. Once you have your purpose in mind, it can help to have a written plan of attack that will allow you to focus your efforts and make sure you don’t forget to cover all the ground you intended.  This plan can take the form of a simple to-do list or a more formal planning tool like the one shown above and below.

You can get it here:   Creative Writing Feedback Planning Tool

Your plan should include the purpose of the feedback you are giving and critical areas you will be addressing, such as emotional reactions, story structure, craft, or editing. For long-term projects, keep each feedback sitting’s planning tool. Collectively, they can provide a historical record of the feedback supplied over time, which can help identify areas of feedback yet to be covered, or recurring problem spots.

Have a Process

Building a standard process can help you do your best work. Sample from these steps to make your own workflow.

1. Centered around the purpose of the feedback at hand, create your plan.

2. Set aside an appropriately sized amount of time.  If your plan will require multiple sittings, go ahead and schedule these out on your calendar, so time doesn’t get away from you. I find it very inefficient to let too much time pass between sittings because I lose a sense of what I have already done and must start over to orient myself.  Who has time for that?

3. Find a place where you can focus, be that hiding from your family in the bathroom, in a coffee shop soothed by the white noise of steaming espresso, or, if you are lucky enough to have one, locked in your home office.

4. For your first pass at written notes, make a version of the document, be it printed or an electronic file, that no one besides you will ever see. Here you won’t have to hold back or filter your thoughts. Having an eyes-only version of your first feedback pass ensures more helpful feedback later and allows you to move more quickly.

5. Read the document or portion you are working on more than once. It is hard to give good feedback if you have only skimmed.

6. Follow your feedback plan and take written notes about both what works very well and what needs improvement on your private version of the document.

7. You can wordsmith the final feedback on the version of the document you will provide the author at the end of the process. Don't overwhelm new writers with too much feedback - prioritize. Remember that writers at all levels appreciate kindness.

8. If possible, share your feedback with the author in person while physically present or using conferencing technology.  A conversation allows the author to ask the reviewer for clarification and squeezes the most value out of the feedback.  This connection is even more important when you are working with newer writers. One-on-one feedback allows you to nurture a trusted relationship with inexperienced writers that will help build their confidence.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following blogs for the fantastic information about giving feedback to creative writers.

How to Give Constructive Feedback to Creative Writing

How to Give Feedback on Fiction: A Guide for Readers

#5onFri: Five Tips For Writing A Helpful Critique

How to give constructive criticism to other writers

Save 10% today on your lessons using the code GIVEME10

Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Creative writing is an important writing style for students to learn about and experience on their journey to becoming writers. Helping students embrace their creativity is a great way to get students writing. Students enjoy writing more when they get choice over their topic and format. Read more about how I use the RAFT writing model in the blog post Student Engagement Through Choice Writing .

Creative writing can be used weekly during free choice writing time, as a stand-alone unit or left for those days when you have a substitute teacher and want to leave an engaging lesson for your students.

Check out the creative writing lessons below to help infuse excitement into your writing program.

Year-Long Creative Writing Choice Boards

This no prep – just photocopy and teach, Creative Writing Full Year Bundle will keep your students engaged in their writing. This bundle provides holiday writing prompts (Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter) as well as seasonal writing prompts (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, Back to School) to support an inclusive classroom environment.

Students will select one of the provided seasonal or holiday-themed character roles and create a written or visual product based on the character’s specific writing prompt using the RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) format.

Find the Creative Writing Full Year Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Included in this Resource:

• Detailed Teacher Instructions
• 9 Different Creative Writing Assignments (with multiple background options)
• Standards-Based Grading Rubric (Level 1 – Level 4)
• Points-Based Grading Rubric (Provides a final percentage mark)
• Google Classroom-ready PDFs

Creative Writing Prompts and Activities

Get your students excited about writing with these no-prep creative writing prompts. Students will select their topic from 20 different writing prompts.

These prompts can be used as a stand-alone assignment, sub plans, or enrichment task. Integrate these prompts into your Writer’s Workshop classes or any ELA writing lesson. Find the Creative Writing Prompts and Activities on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Resource Includes:

• Teacher Instructions
• Student Assignment Sheet (List or Choice Board Format)
• 6 Anchor Charts
• 20 different levelled writing prompts
• 2 Rubric Options (Standards-Based Rubric or Points-Based Rubric)

Interactive Writing Prompts

These no-prep interactive writing prompts get students up and moving during English class. Students use the 9 different story prompts to get thinking creatively about what might happen in each scenario. Students must move around the classroom to answer each other’s story writing prompts. Find the Interactive Writing Prompts on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

• 9 Different Open Ended Story Prompts
• 1 Blackline Master for students to create their own

Are you looking for more writing activities?

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This FREE persuasive writing unit is

• Perfect for engaging students in public speaking and persuasive writing
• Time and energy saving
• Ideal for in-person or online learning

By using highly-engaging rants, your students won’t even realize you’ve channeled their daily rants and complaints into high-quality, writing!

BOLDFACE 101: THE CREATIVE WRITING PEER REVIEW

Workshops are an integral and exciting part of the Boldface experience. At first, however, they can seem intimidating. Don’t worry! This week’s installment of Boldface 101 introduces you to the process of giving and receiving peer reviews.

First and foremost, we urge you to prepare in advance. Thinking deeply about your critiques and making meaningful comments is important. Your classmates are there for the same reasons you are—to improve their writing. Don’t dismiss your role as peer and colleague, what you say matters! We hope you’ll check out the following pointers on giving and receiving feedback.

Giving Feedback to Fellow Writers

The golden rule is universal. Treat your peers and their writing with care and respect. Take this part of the writers conference seriously. You wouldn’t like it if others were inconsiderate of you or your work, so be mindful of how you present your comments. Beyond that, requirements are flexible. Your workshop leader will provide guidance in advance regarding how they want you to approach the process, but here are a few best practices to consider in the meantime:

• Avoid saying what you did or didn’t “like.”  These kinds of statements have more to do with opinion and less to do with what is or is not successful in a given piece of writing. You don’t always have to “like” something to see whether it’s worthwhile or whether it’s accomplishing its goal as technique or craft.
• Provide constructive criticism AND reinforcement.  It’s always nice to hear what you ARE doing effectively as a writer. Remember to encourage your peers when you spot something you think is especially effective, rather than letting it go unsaid and focusing 100% of your critique on what still needs improvement.
• Be specific.  Generic and vague comments aren’t very helpful in a creative writing workshop. Your peer review isn’t going to be useful unless it contains detailed analysis and examples of what is/isn’t working in a piece of writing. Make sure to be specific and elaborate on your ideas.
• Check for author notes.  If your peer has asked for feedback on a specific issue, make sure to address their concerns!

Don’t forget—you’ll be receiving feedback, too! Here are some things to remember when receiving constructive criticism:

• It’s not personal.  So, don’t take it personally. We understand this is easier said than done, especially when it comes to your writing. But that’s just it. It’s your writing, not you, that’s being critiqued.
• Listen actively and to understand.  In other words, don’t just give in to your first reaction, which may be purely defensive. Let your peers complete their thoughts and explain what they mean. Take some time to consider things before deciding whether to incorporate or leave out suggestions.
• Stay open-minded.  You might receive some radical insights, but sometimes it’s helpful to try unexpected ideas! Perhaps your short story is the beginning of a novel, or a plot twist reveals itself. Writing is a magical process that can lead you down new paths if you let it. So, try to remain open to possibilities!
• Ask questions!  If you don’t understand something, don’t hesitate to ask your group to clarify. That is, after all, why they’re there!

“Imagine spending the day at a coffeeshop filled with unique, passionate, intelligent writers who want to share their knowledge—and listen to you in kind. Now imagine doing that for five days in a row. That’s Boldface.” -Boldface 2017 Participant

We think you’ll find that meeting with the same group multiple times throughout the week makes for a close-knit and supportive environment. Hopefully, this brief guide to the creative writing workshop eliminates any uncertainties you may have. If not, let us know! Reach out anytime to  [email protected] , or better yet, get involved in the conversation on  Facebook ,  Twitter , and  Instagram !

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Boldface blog for the scoop on our awesome visiting writers and other useful information. Happy writing (and reviewing)!

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9 Ways to Give (More Effective) Writing Feedback

Grading essays is a tricky business. Commenting on every problem leads to a sea of ink that can overwhelm students. […] Continue Reading

1. Workshop It

I do a workshop with my middle schoolers in which they share their work with the group and everyone offers “things that can be better.” We do a lot of preparation so that everyone understands we aren’t being mean, but rather trying to help make each essay stronger.— Lyn Huston

2. Talk It Through

Have your students email their paper to you. You can use a microphone and talk through the corrections as you video and use the highlighter or drawing tools to point out what you are referring to. It’s really easy once you get used to it. It saves a lot of time and it’s great documentation to refer back to. Once you are finished, save it and send it to your student. The process becomes a writing conference.— Penny Larson

3. Focus In

I like to focus on only a few areas of improvement at a time. I don’t tell them everything that could be improved in their writing. It can be overwhelming and even shut them down as new writers.— Annie Kabb

4. Practice Critiquing Together

I save copies of essays from previous years that have specific problems I want to illustrate. I share them, without names of course, and we consider as a group what the essay needs in order to improve the clarity, organization, or needed detail.— Penny Larson

5. Do Three Stars and a Wish

Here’s a technique that always works. For each essay, you write three positive things that you see in their writing. Those are the “three stars.”  Then you give them one wish, one area in which you’d like to see them improve.  The most important thing is to give them the positive feedback first and make it specific (clear thesis statement) not general (nice work).— Hanan Ezzeldin

6. Use a Specific Rubric

I always use a specific rubric so students are clear on expectations and can check off the important components before turning their writing in. For each item on the rubric, I assign a check, a minus or a plus along with a brief comment. I also allow students to turn in a writing assignment early for ungraded feedback. This encourages timely completion and a chance to improve.— Susan Werb

7. Do Peer Review First

Have each student trade papers with a peer before it comes to you.  Commenters write three specific positive comments and sign their name. This gives students a chance to see what others are writing and thinking. It also may be that students provide higher quality work when there is the possibility of someone other than the teacher reading their work.— Sharon McKinney

8. Use Two Pens

Try using two different colored pens such as green and blue. Write all your positive comments in one color, suggestions for improvement in the other. You’ll be able to see at a glance if you are striking a good balance.—Kelsie Smith

9. Identify Mini Lessons

If students are still in the draft phase, provide a whole-class mini lesson on a specific writing problem you are seeing often. Then have the students go through their own essays and find those mistakes. Meet with individual students that continue to have these issues in their writing. Next time, you do another mini-lesson. Pick and choose what you want to focus on grading. — Matt Epp ADVERTISEMENT

If you liked this article, you may also want to check out Writing Across the Content Areas and Teaching Fact vs. Opinion at Every Grade Level .

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Eight Free Creative Writing Lessons

February 17, 2012 by Ami 17 Comments

I know I throw around the word favorite all the time. But this is the truth: teaching creative writing lessons is my favorite. 

I have taught creative writing enrichment for summer school students. I have taught creative writing in various homeschool settings and co-ops. I have taught big students and little students. And I love it. 

Since I love to share homeschool co-op class ideas , I have compiled the creative writing lessons from a co-op class that I taught. 

Creative Writing Lessons for a Homeschool Co-op Class

First, please remember that any teacher can use these creative writing lessons. You don’t need to be teaching homeschoolers. You can be a classroom teacher or a homeschool teacher at home with one student. You can even be a librarian who needs a fun program series.

Second, I used these creative writing lesson plans with upper elementary students (with maybe a few 7th graders thrown in). However, you can adapt and use them for older students or younger students!

Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Creative writing lesson one.

The first lesson focuses on cliché and metaphor. It prompts students to consider how words matter.

Grab lesson one here .

Creative Writing Lesson Two

The second lesson teaches students about sensory details: why they are important and how to include them in their writing. Students will begin using sensory details to evoke smells and sounds and sights.

Grab lesson two here.

Creative Writing Lesson Three

The third lesson introduces showing vs. telling. Students learn how to recognize authors who utilize showing, and students are able to articulate the difference between showing and telling.

Grab lesson three here.

Creative Writing Lesson Four

The fourth lesson teaches students how to capture images. We use examples of poetry and prose to discuss this important writing skill.

Grab lesson four here.

Creative Writing Lesson Five

The fifth lesson introduces the story elements of character and conflict.

Note: You may choose to split this lesson into two lessons since it covers two big elements. I only had nine weeks with my students, so I had to jam character and conflict together.

Grab lesson five here.

Creative Writing Lesson Six

The sixth lesson introduces the students to point of view and perspective. We have fun reading poems and using pictures to write descriptions from different points of view.

Grab lesson six here.

Creative Writing Lesson Seven

The seventh lesson puts everything we’ve learned together. I read the students some fractured fairy tales, and we watch some, too. Students then use the prewriting activities and their imaginations to begin drafting their own fractured fairy tales.

Grab lesson seven here.

Creative Writing Lesson Eight

The eighth lesson focuses on revision. After a mini-lesson, students partner up for peer editing.

Grab lesson eight here .

For our final class day, students bring revised work, and I host coffee shop readings. This is a memorable experience for students (and their teacher).

Creative Writing Lessons FAQ

Since posting these creative writing lessons, I have had lots of questions. I decided to compile them here in case you have the same question.

Q: What are copywork quotes? A: Copywork quotes are simply great quotes that students copy as part of their homework assignments. You can use any quotes about writing. I’ve included my favorites throughout the printable packs.

Q: Can I use this with a younger or older student? A: Absolutely! Just adapt it to meet the needs of your student.

Q: Can I use this for my library’s programming or my homeschool co-op class? A: Yes! I just ask that it not be used for profit.

Do you have any questions about teaching creative writing? What’s your biggest hang-up when it comes to teaching creative writing? I’d love to hear from you and help you solve the issue.

January 7, 2016 at 1:57 pm

Hi Theresa,

As long as you are not profitting from using them, they are yours to use! Enjoy! Wish I could be there to help facilitate all those young writers! 

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